


Jigsaw Falling Into Place

by 7Threes



Series: Jigsaw Falling Into Place [13]
Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Body Horror, Brain anomalies, Conspiracy, Denial, Disease, ESP (Extra Sensory Perception), Fix-It of Sorts, Gay, Gore, Hallucinations, I can't stress to you enough, I'm 14 and this is deep/s, I'm Sorry, I'm not really 14, If You Squint - Freeform, Insanity, Lots of references to De-Loused in the Comatorium, Major Spoilers, Major canon divergence, Martyrdom, Medicine, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Murder, Mutilation, Obsession, Original Character(s), Partial Mind Control, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Science Fiction, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, Sometimes OOC, Songfic, Supernatural - Freeform, Time-Loop AU, Trauma, Trippy, Weird Plot Shit, an absolute mess, don't worry about that last tag, fait accompli, kinda cringe not even gonna lie, lots of exposition, major trigger warning, not the show, probably mostly OOC, some LSD crap ngl, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19776559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7Threes/pseuds/7Threes
Summary: Part 13 out of many to a series attributed under the name “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, not to be confused with the name of this work. Check the collection description for more details on the series as a whole.Akira is from Inaba AU, Time-Loop AU, Major Canon Divergence. Updates to the series biweekly.A collection of small sections that fit into one part like a puzzle. Read the prior works in the series, please!*!!*CURRENTLY REWORKING THE ENTIRE SERIES*!!*





	1. Justice I

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who follow me, you’ll know I’ve been depressed and unmotivated as of late. It’s a sore feeling in me, and I find it difficult to remember even my own ambitions.
> 
> I love you all, dear critics and readers. I want you to know that.

He wasn’t sure when he had first started to see Akira in place of the Phantom Thieves in his head, but he first noticed it around the time the dark-haired teen began to hang around him more, as per their agreement.

  
  


“Boss said that it was fine to help you out, so long as I don’t get into any trouble.”

_ That’s good,  _ Akechi thought _ , I can keep an eye on him.  _ “Thank you very much for your generosity.”

Akira snorted, “Don’t be so stiff, I’m not your boss.”

Akechi shook his head in reply, “No, Akira. This is out of genuine gratitude - I’ll be annoying you for the rest of Summer Break.”

“And on Sundays,” Akira pointed out, “which actually brings me to the point. Would you like to hang out with me and my friends at the beach?”

“Oh, I’m already invading enough of your time as is. You don’t need to be so kind-“

“Don’t worry about it, Goro,” the other smiled at him, “I’m sure you’ve had a ton of stress lately, and you deserve a break.”

Akechi swallowed,  _ I don’t deserve anything from you, I’m a disgusting human being, and you’re too kind for me to destroy. _

**_He’s only feigning his cordial nature, I bet he’s just as sick as me._ **

He gripped his head and winced.

“Is everything alright, Goro?” the suspect asked, concerned.

**_I’m so fucked up, you don’t even know._ **

“I just haven’t gotten enough sleep lately, is all.” Akechi smiled sheepishly.

“Well, don’t hold out just for me.” Akira shrugged and gestured Akechi to the red couch, where he slept the last time.

Akechi was going to protest, but relented when Akira went through the trouble of giving him his sheets.

“I’ll try, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to.”


	2. Death I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira sees Takemi with the concern of a mysterious ailment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that I didn’t upload the other day. I wasn’t planning to upload today either, since I’m away from home, but I guess I’m doing this from my phone.

_ A Week Earlier _

Akira had come down sick with a case of meningitis, and when he went to Takemi’s clinic, she noticed something strange.

  
  


“The case of meningitis you suffer from isn’t caused by any sort of pathogen, from what I’ve tested. Instead, your brain and spine seem to be under pressure due to some sort of reddish membrane pressing against them.

“The membrane seems to be mostly benign, since it isn’t corrosive or anything, the only notable side-effect seems to be the meningitis that you’re experiencing.” the doctor paused for a moment, “With the blood sample you gave me, the membrane that’s causing this can be examined further.”

At first when he complained about feeling sick, he didn’t want to get his blood tested. He was a bit flighty about it.

Akira wasn’t the type of person to be afraid of doctors, but after getting shot up with needles and beaten 387 times, he had developed an aversion to them. Just like how he was always careful working in  _ Untouchable _ after he had been killed, or whenever he felt the cool steel of the gun in the Metaverse, he’d shiver in fear. Gunshots, the echo of metal through flesh that gurgled with blood, it haunted his dreams at night. Same thing with explosions, always reminded him of Ryuji being blasted away into ribbons of what once was human-shaped.

Takemi wasn’t aware of that, though. She never could’ve been, since she didn’t have a projection of herself that recalled the experiences of those recycled 387 years.   
  


He left the clinic hoping for answers the next time he came back, but instead was faced with more questions.

  
  
  


_ “So…”  _ Takemi sighed, as if in defeat, “I tested it, but I still don’t know how or what produced it...”

_ Well, fuck.  _ Akira internally groaned in realization that he might have to live with ebbing and flowing drugs that gave him headaches.

“...or so I  _ thought _ .” the doctor said, which drew the black-haired teen’s attention. “This membrane was produced due to an acute placebo effect, where a perceived result comes to be, but the result produced by your own body overcompensated.

“The membrane is also mostly composed of fat and water, and has a neural pathway similar to a human’s but…” she paused, and furrowed her brows as if she were a mix between confused and mad, “The genetic composition isn’t like yours, from what I can tell. It’s inhuman, but I can’t really say if it’s protozoan or parasitic because your Macrophages aren’t attacking it…

“... But I guess you mostly care about if it’s hurting you or not. The short answer is  _ ‘no’,  _ and that the meningitis you’re experiencing is due to the cells rapid replication. 

“To elaborate, this membrane might evolve and  _ become  _ malign at any point due to its quick replication, so I’m going to look into how to make a drug to kill this thing. Until then, I’d recommend you continue to take antibiotics since the membrane seems to feed off of bacteria in your body due to the unusually low amounts of bacteria that I found while I tested your saliva and mucus. It’s also a given that you should refrain from physical exertion - you’re sick. Since it isolates itself into the areas of your spine and cranial cavity, I’m not too worried about it being contagious, you’re fine to go to school if you’re still sick when Summer Break ends.”

Akira nodded glumly, worried that maybe he’d be too sick for the next heist. Takemi cleared her throat and further informed the schooler, “You’re not going to like this either, but…

“... I’m going to share my findings with the nearby hospitals in case of emergency.” She noted the scowl Akira gave her, “Look, I don’t know what this thing is, but I want you to have better care than just  _ me,  _ a  _ general practitioner in the backstreets.  _ This is for your own good. Oh, and I’m calling your parents.”

“You seem awfully calm for there being a  _ foreign cellular structure growing in my body.”  _ he noted while he frowned.

She shrugged, “It’s not dangerous to  _ you,  _ it seems. But I’m going to need you to get tested at someplace better equipped for this.

“Plus, they might  _ pay _ you to get tests done. Knowing you,  _ Mister Phantom Thief _ , it ought to be some strange supernatural  _ mumbo jumbo,  _ if I remember correctly. Plus, those nerds’ll  _ love  _ it.”

“How did you-“

“Did you think you were the only one who could remember, my guinea pig? Of course I’d never forget, you always helped me.”

Akira smiled in response, and hugged the doctor who stuttered and denied his support, but then relented.

“You must be so  _ tired _ . How many times have we gone through everything? Over and over again?” she hugged back, “You’ve always been someone’s crutch - even  _ mine _ . You deserve better than to live through this year  _ over  _ and  _ over _ again.”

He sobbed into her coat, but she didn’t care much at that moment even if she might have later, “Th-three hundred… eighty-s-seven times…”

The doctor rubbed him on the back reassuringly, “You’ve helped me for all that time, you can take a break. Don’t forget that you can always ask for help, it’s okay. You don’t have to save everyone, all of the time.”

Akira shook his head, “N-no, I’ve got to…” he stuttered between sobs, “...one last time, I need to save the world. This is the last chance I get to  _ truly  _ save  _ everyone.” _

Takemi hummed back. She knew she didn’t understand, but she also knew that Akira had something in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to be honest with you guys.
> 
> I’m losing the will to continue this series.
> 
> I see other works get so many hits, and I wonder if my effort is even worth it. I know it’s not about that, but seeing how it is I wonder if I should keep writing when it feels like nobody cares.
> 
> I’m sorry, I know you guys probably do, but I can’t help how bad I feel.
> 
> I still have enough content to satisfy you guys for around half a year of uploading, but I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to pull through with this. I’m sorry, I’d love to say we’re so close but there’s only half the content present than what I planned. I’m sure I’ll be able to get out of this pit in that time, but I want to warn you all in advance if not.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	3. Strength I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inmate causes memories to resurface in the Wardens...
> 
> The past of beyond that has yet to be seen.
> 
> Not by you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter. Full of nonsense. Have you played the prior games?

They rarely saw the Inmate in the Velvet Room, untypical of many of the previous Wild Cards. An itching part of Caroline told her why, as for Justine the voice seemed more timid and subdued.

The rare occasions the Inmate entered, he’d act all cordial,  _ familiar  _ with the Twin Wardens. Caroline hated it, but Justine felt like it was oddly nostalgic.

One day in particular, the Inmate had a strange energy about him. Like his mind was still yet further away, as if the Velvet Room wasn’t a realm between mind and matter, as if it wasn’t the highest he could reach with his skinny and pale arms; that the cage of his heart didn’t bother him.

  
  


“What’s  _ wrong  _ with you,  _ Inmate!”  _ Caroline barked as she slammed her shockstick against the bars of his cell, bringing him back to their presence, “You haven’t said a  _ word  _ since you came here! Are you gonna fuse or  _ not?!” _

The Inmate shrugged noncommittally, which angered Caroline. “Answer me or don’t waste our time,  _ Inmate!” _

Justine shook her head, “There’s no need to be so violent, Caroline. He has done nothing.”

_ “Exactly!”  _ she hissed in return. Justine only stared in disapproval, “The Inmate has already fulfilled all of his tasks. We have no reason to bother him anymore, but to serve.”

Caroline growled in response but said nothing.

“Don’t you think it’s odd, though?” Justine remarked to her twin sister, who remained silent for the other to continue, “The Inmate seems to have grown in strength in a way that we cannot govern, that not even Master-“

“Don’t be stupid, Justine! There’s not a  _ thing  _ that Master has no power over.” Caroline corrected the other warden, who only darkly looked down, “Ah, yes. I suppose you are correct.”

But Caroline knew exactly what Justine meant, the power that the Inmate exuded was different than that of Personas, it was akin to the walls of Mementos that were far more ancient and powerful that the matter of her Master. It struck her briefly, the recollection of a dream where one became two, meiosis, binary fission - but then the memory spilled, like an unsupported vase holding flowers.

Justine had a more tangible idea, however. The notes written in her handwriting, but that she did not remember writing, held transcripts of conversations.

**_Domain Appt. No. 1493 - L_ **

**_Fürchten Address to Darbieten_ **

_ *Fürchten takes form as Osiris, his der Beratung der Waage take the forms of Anubis (Nettheit), Thoth (Erfahren), Ammut (Gebieter), and Seth (Grausamkeit). Erfahren is the offense’s transcriber, Nettheit and Grausamkeit the integrity-checkers, Gebieter the executioner, and Fürchten the lead questioner. _

_ Fürchten: This marks the one-thousand four-hundred and ninety-second time here, [Darbieten]. _

_ Erfahren: No, this is the one-thousand four-hundred and ninety-third time [Darbieten] has held an appointment with der Beratung der Waage, Herr [Fürchten]. _

_ Fürchten: Es tut mir leid, meine Berater. As of now, this marks [Darbieten]’s one-thousand four-hundred and ninety-third appointment with der Beratung der Waage, and six-hundred and seventy-second appointment concerning humanity’s cognitive world over the span of just over twenty Earth years. The gaps between these meetings are extremely short, and this time der Beratung der Waage are excluded on the decision making of the decided punishment - this appointment it is [Füruchten]’s intention to come to a solid and conclusive verdict to these continued offenses against the Domain, against [Fürchten]. _

_ Darbieten: Why aren’t you speaking in rhymes, Herr [Fürchten]? _

_ Fürchten: I ask that [Darbieten] will not interrupt me while I present my opening statement. You should be aware of this by now, and once more will constitute in an unsatisfactory and unjust verdict. _

_ As it has become apparent to you, I am not speaking in rhymes. I am making the best effort I can to maintain my professionalism here, as opposed to just expelling you from any stretch of the Domain - do not test me further than you already have, my patience has run thin with the constant breaking of [the] Pledge. _

_ The known accounts against [Darbieten] are thirty repeated breakings of the Pledge: nineteen accounts of the bestowment of supernatural power, five accounts of the theft of a branch of the Domain, and six accounts of the manipulation of spacetime. _

_ [Darbieten] possesses only the defense of his attendants, who have been proven to be unreliable witnesses. We merely bring in the only living witness to either testify for or against [Darbieten]’s defense - the verdict will be purely based on this testimony of one of [Darbieten]’s victims. _

_ Approach the stand, human. _

_ *The human steps onto the stand before der Beratung der Waage. _

_ Fürchten: Human, state your name and your relation to [Darbieten] to der Beratung. _

_ Witness: My name is [Man Steuerung], and I am one of the humans that [Darbieten] illegally bestowed with supernatural power. _

_ Fürchten: Have you been made aware that for the sake of this appointment’s confidentiality, you shall forget everything upon your awakening from this coma-visit to the Domain, correct? _

_ Steuerung: That is correct, [Fürchten]-sama. _

_ Fürchten: Very well, you may now testify. Due to the nature of this appointment, however, I shall conduct the cross-examination. _

_ Steuerung: Thank you, [Fürchten]-sama. _

**_[Man Steuerung]’s Testimony and Cross-Examination_ **

_ Steuerung: I was a transfer student to [REDACTED] and moved in with my uncle in the town of [REDACTED], where a series of murders would then soon occur. _

_ Steuerung: After the first two killings, my friends and I entered the TV World, and then made a deal to start investigating with a Shadow we met there. _

_ Fürchten: How did you know to enter the TV? _

_ Steuerung: There was a rumor at the school that if you watched TV at midnight when it rained, you would see your soulmate. I stuck my hand inside the TV screen and inadvertently awoke to some sort of power. _

_ Fürchten: Can you describe this power? _

_ Steuerung: It was a projection of our true selves that we used to fight Shadows, the deepest and darkest things people suppress. _

_ Fürchten: Continue with your testimony. _

_ Steuerung: I eventually was given a key to a place called the Velvet Room, where [Darbieten] and his attendant [REDACTED] managed. [Darbieten] offered help to cultivate my power, and I accepted. _

_ Steuerung: The murderer used the TV world to kill people who were on TV, such as the first two victims [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. Many of my friends were kidnapped and almost killed, like my classmate [REDACTED], [REDACTED] who took out a whole gang of bikers, the pop star [REDACTED], the ace detective [REDACTED], and then eventually my cousin [REDACTED]. My teacher was murdered by a copycat killer, too. _

_ Fürchten: So so you believe that [Darbieten], by bringing this world into the hands of cruel humanity, harmed the world? _

_ Steuerung: No. _

_ Fürchten: Why not? _

_ Steuerung: I believe you misunderstand, [Fürchten]-sama, [Darbieten] didn’t- _

_ *Grausamkeit interrupts [Steuerung]. _

_ Grausamkeit: Herr [Fürchten] is never mistaken, arrogant human. Know your place. _

_ Nettheit: No, Grausamkeit, [Steuerung] is correct. [Darbieten] wasn’t the one who brought in the cognitive world, it was [REDACTED]. _

_ Fürchten: Silence! There will be order in this Beratung! _

_ *[Fürchten] pauses before speaking again. _

_ Fürchten: [Steuerung], is statement true? _

_ Steuerung: Partially. The killer was granted his power by [REDACTED], what I assume to be a creation of human cognition that went awry. The killer, [REDACTED], then tried to fuse the TV world and the real world. _

_ Fürchten: So then you discount [Darbieten]’s involvement in the near destruction of the world? _

_ Steuerung: I believe [Darbieten] granted us powers for the sake of preventing it, [Fürchten]-sama. _

_ Fürchten: That does not answer the question. _

_ Steuerung: [Darbieten] did not contribute to the near-destruction of the world. _

_ Fürchten: [Darbieten] did not get consent from me to take this part of my dominion. Why didn’t he just ask? _

_ Steuerung: With all due respect, [Fürchten]-sama, but are you not the incarnate of everyone on Earth? _

_ Fürchten: I am asking the questions. _

_ Nettheit: Herr [Fürchten], are you not both seeking the truth behind the matter? _

_ Fürchten: I do seek the truth, it is the inherent drive of all intelligence. _

_ Nettheit: Then shouldn’t you answer [Steuerung]’s question, Herr? _

_ Fürchten: Fine, Nettheit. _

_ Fürchten: [Steuerung], I am not just the incarnation of all mankind - I am the amalgam of the certain living, my mind does not include any of Schrodinger’s what-have-you’s. _

_ Steuerung: That's a strange way for an amalgamous deity to phrase it, but okay. _

_ Grausamkeit: You will show respect to Herr [Fürchten], insolent mortal. _

_ Fürchten: Let him alone, fool. Tell me, [Steuerung], why is it important for you to know my nature? _

_ Steuerung: No offense, but you go through this arbitrary process of ‘appointments’ every time a request is made in order to show off airs, but it doesn’t really matter in the end. Not only that, but you’re the incarnate of the state of mind - in the case where humankind would desire to abandon their humanity like [REDACTED] said, you would also desire such an outcome. Is that incorrect? _

_ Nettheit: This process was established because of that very reason. Were [Fürchten] compromised, der Beratung der Waage are given the power to make a parliamentary decision. We are imprints of the aspects of humanity that define it, myself being positive irrationality, Grausamkeit being irrational negativity, Gebieter rational judgement, and Erfahren the urge of curiosity. _

_ Steuerung: Even still, these appointments are tedious, aren’t they? _

_ Grausamkeit: Puny mortal, of course. _

_ Fürchten: Once more, Grausamkeit, and Gebieter will judge  _ you _ instead. _

_ Gebieter: The entities of the Domain lack the same perception of time as you do, [Steuerung], which has been an issue with our punctuality. Herr [Fürchten], this argument is quite relevant and could be a viable reason for [Darbieten]’s breaking of the Pledge. Amendments are in order. _

_ Nettheit: Yes, I do agree that the fashion in which we discuss is not always civil, nor does it satisfy immediate needs. _

_ Fürchten: Very well, your argument has been noted, [Steuerung]. However, into the very reconstruction of humankind’s cognitive world, [Darbieten] has given the order to enable selective human access to the project. With the allowance of more humans like [REDACTED] to thrive in these settings where they have power once again, the world could easily fall into ruin once again. _

_ Nettheit: [Darbieten] has actually proposed a solution, to separate the individual cognitive desires from the collective, which disables a single person from manipulating the world. _

_ Fürchten: What if humanity falls into ruin as [REDACTED] suggested they would? _

_ Nettheit: [Darbieten] has imposed a failsafe for that. If humanity falls into corruption- _

_ *Grausamkeit interrupted. _

_ Grausamkeit: Humans are bound to fall into ruin, do not use ‘if’. _

_ Fürchten: That’s it, Grausamkeit. You had your warning. Gebieter, expel him from the Sclera. _

_ *Grausamkeit is removed from the appointment, and then the council proceeds. _

_ Nettheit: As I was saying before, this new rendition of the cognitive world includes a failsafe that resets corruption. Distorted desires are given shape, and then one who enters the cognitive world may remove these distorted desires. _

_ Fürchten: What of the Shadows, then? What would protect them from death? _

_ Steuerung: If I may say, wouldn’t be impossible to monitor all these pockets of desire? _

_ Nettheit: The plan is to only give shape to places where people possess intense distorted desires, nothing like positive feelings or harmless wanting. The kind that’s detrimental to other humans. _

_ Gebieter: On the subject of Shadows, we have no obligation to protect them. Were a human so distorted that they harm others for their own personal gain, they have placed themselves on a pedestal to be punished. _

_ Fürchten: And the only ones capable of entering this cognitive world are specifically to be selected, correct? Who has the authority? _

_ Nettheit: Whomever controls the Velvet Room or above have the jurisdiction to select candidates, and those who enter the cognitive world may be those within a certain proximity of a chosen candidate, so that they can awaken a power to assist in the candidate’s escapades. _

_ Gebieter: The cognitive world itself has been codenamed ‘the Meta-Universe’, the collective cognition is ‘Memento Mori’, and the individual corruptions ‘Destinations’, mind you. _

_ Nettheit: What is the relevance of that? _

_ Gebieter: For brevity, do you not see Erfahren trying to keep up? _

_ Fürchten: Enough! We may discuss this later, but what has become very problematic is the looping of time. How can you justify that? _

_ Steuerung: I believe it was so that [Darbieten] could further cultivate me before I confronted [REDACTED]. _

_ Gebieter: [Darbieten] looped time in order to duplicate [Steuerung] and his friends as a failsafe were humanity to give up in the future. _

_ Steuerung: To be fair, nobody else noticed that time was looping, or remembered the past times they’ve lived through that year. _

_ Nettheit: Yes, Herr [Früchten], and only those bestowed with the power or [Steuerung]’s friends were the only ones who possibly could recall. _

_ Erfahren: [Steuerung], are you unaware that your powers enable you to interfere with reality? _

_ *Erfahren pauses, his announcement renders the room silent. _

_ Erfahren: Pardon the sudden subject change Herr [Früchten], but from what we know about this type of power [Man] possesses, that can happen. _

_ Fürchten: Elaborate. _

_ Steuerung: Yes, that would be enlightening. _

_ Erfahren: So it seems that you don’t know… Depending upon the aspects’ abilities, they are able to manipulate cognition in general. Say that we have one that has special control over the mind, they can trigger the growth or death of cells, the change in someone’s mental condition, as well as other things. _

_ Steuerung: I possess Izanagi, so what does that mean? _

_ Erfahren: What the Persona is is inconsequential, it primarily depends upon the desires of an individual, and depending upon the power of their Persona, they can gauge how much of the desired effect takes place. This is only amplified by basing the cognitive world on desire, we should be careful. _

_ Fürchten: Do you believe something like that would be [Darbieten]’s will, [Steuerung]? _

_ Steuerung: Absolutely not, _

_ Fürchten: Then why would [Darbieten] base this new cognitive world on desire? _

_ Nettheit: To interject, it could be argued that since the candidates are chosen, that it is inconsequential the effects the power has on others minds. _

_ Fürchten: Do you trust [Darbieten] to select virtuous candidates among the seas of cruelty that rot your race? _

_ Steuerung: I’m not sure to be offended, but I’d use myself as evidence when I say ‘yes’. _

_ Fürchten: Then that’s that… _


	4. The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira meets up with his politician friend, who is concerned for his health.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% sure about Japan's healthcare system, but I assume I messed up a bit.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry for the late update (ugh, again), I got back into school last week, and I'm an athlete, so I've been doing a lot of conditioning right after school. Also, my apologies for the underwhelming chapter.

“I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon, young man.” the washed-up politician smiled to the messy-haired schooler, and ruffled his hair in a fatherly manner that Akira  _ remembered,  _ and enjoyed.

“I went to see the local G.P. and she examined me, then sent her findings to some nearby hospitals.” he shrugged in return, and the old man widened his eyes slightly in question.

“Is it that serious?”

Akira shrugged in reply, “I’m taking antibiotics, and she didn’t seem too worried about it.”

“Well  _ I  _ am,” the politician placed his hands on his hips, “what if the hospital overcharges you? How would you get the money for that.”

“I have my ways,” the teen joked while he motioned his hands in a ‘magical’ manner.

“Well, I won’t have you working out here if you’re sick.” Yoshida crossed his arms, much to Akira’s displeasure.

“I told you I feel fine-“

“Yes, but you can do better things than hanging out with an old guy like me.” he sighed.

Akira shook his head, “I think you’re pretty amazing.”

Yoshida tilted his head in question, but was answered when his adamant supporter said:

“You’re the one adult that I know who stands up for what you believe in, and doesn’t cave into what other people wish of you. You try and change the world with what you are able to do, despite your past. Just like me, just like my friends.”

The old man laughed in reply, full of heart, full of warmth, “Well then, I hope to one day be able to show you and your friends the same support that you have for me.”

Akira smiled for a second, until Yoshida added, “... Member of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.”

He was about to shake and run away, but then the politician placed a firm hand on his shoulder, “I would never forget something so inspiring, young man. When everyone else chose to give up, you rose to the challenge instead. I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better person to bet on than you.”

The leader of the Phantom Thieves grinned at the man, cordial, like the father who never was there.


	5. The Hanged Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Working one of his many jobs, Akira encounters an unexpected problem.

“Did the old guy tell ya to scram or something, kid?” Iwai huffed at the glasses-wearing teen who entered  _ Untouchable. _

Akira hummed noncommittally, which caused the store owner to frown in discontent. “You still sick?”

“Yeah,” the teen almost whispered, “it’s nothing, though.”

“You better not be shitting me, kid. You know about the connections I’ve got, ‘n’ you better not be dying.” the clerk grumbled around his lime-flavored sucker.

“Give me work.” the kid told him, the  _ audacity _ .

“You got a lotta balls to talk like that, still, that’s for sure.” Iwai commented, “So how’re your Phantom Thief buddies enjoying my gear?”

He wasn’t satisfied with how Akira was unsurprised that he knew his secret, “Why the hell’re you even buying models, kid? They won’t hurt anybody. See, look…”

Iwai swung his legs from the counter and stood up to where Akira stared blankly at his own hands, and then pressed the barrel of his model Tkachev to the teen’s forehead. He flinched dramatically, and started to hyperventilate. Then something even more weird happened.

“Aw, shit, kid,” Iwai beat himself up internally while he observed strange rash-like formations spread across Akira’s skin. The teen wanted to yell, but clenched his jaw and rubbed his forehead to get the  _ burning out of his skull, out of his head, out of his brain, get out get out getoutgetout- _

He started to sweat into the heat of his phantom pains, and Iwai didn’t know what the  _ fuck  _ to do other than to drop the model gun and go by the writhing boy’s side and at least  _ try  _ to comfort him.

_ “Don’t- I gotta save him. Save him before he does it again-“ _

“Slow down kid, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about.” Iwai scowled in frustration at his inability to help the kid who helped him so much in the past.

_ “I can’t- you won’t-“ _

“Just tell me, kid. You’re Kaoru’s bro, you helped me out of some serious shit,” the surly manager said, “at least give me something, kid.”

_ “It just keeps happening… Am I living, or am I dead…?” _

“What does, kid?”

_ “Never mind.” _

“Don’t give me that shit.” Iwai growled, and waited for Akira to relent and calm himself.

The teen stood up from where he fell, and brushed himself off much to Iwai’s surprise. “Seems like people have been starting to put things together again, and you will eventually.” the kid’s voice was shaky, “We’re not kidding when we say  _ ‘of hearts’,  _ you know. Your guns work if someone believes they do in their heart, where we go to make them confess.”

The boy sighed then continued, “We deal in cognition, mind-bending things, impossibles made possible with the world of the mind.”

“Why’d you freak out like that, kid?” Iwai wanted the answer, he didn’t care so much how his product worked to help the Phantom Thieves anymore.

“When humanity decided to stop choosing for themselves, they dreamt up a god to control everything. With that power, the worlds fused, there was no longer distance between wish and in the flesh, no difference between dream and reality. It was the ultimate challenge, and we failed. Three hundred eighty-seven times, everything rewound and I was back to square one with no memory of what happened.”

“Cut the shit, kid-“

“Many of those times, I was killed. Shot in the head. The wounds still remain.” Akira finished his speech before he lifted his bangs to show the deep grooved bullet hole contusion on his forehead. Iwai was left speechless, and only with more questions. But then he remembered the cold winters of this year, hearing the announcement that the leader of the Phantom Thieves committed suicide in custody, the panic in his gut as he thought of the good kid who helped him out- he was even more worried what Kaoru would think, that his bro killed himself, gave up.

His mouth became dry.

Iwai just wordlessly crossed his arms, and then sighed, “I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t know-“

“No, you’re fine. It was my fault for… daydreaming.” Akira shrugged.

The surly manager shook his head, “Don’t keep me in the dark, kid. It’ll come back to bite you in the ass later.”

“I don’t plan on letting it.”

“Don’t fuck with me, smartass. You’ve done some real shit for me, okay? I’m not gonna screw you over after all you’ve done for me.”

“I’m not a ‘quid pro quo’ type of guy.” Akira lowered his brows to a firm stare defiant to Iwai’s suggestion.

“Bullshit, you live for these fucking discounts. Don’t try and act like you can just give all the time, it’s gonna tear you to pieces.”

The teen gestured at all of his inflamed skin in place of scars and wounds, “I know the risks of taking all of society’s burdens. It’s taken my life, taken my friends’, taken the  _ world’s _ . _ ” _

“And you said you’ve gone through this so many times, so isn’t it good that I’m remembering how much you’ve fucking done for this place?”

The boy gave up, and caved.

“You’re a good kid, you don’t need to be the  _ messiah  _ or some crap. No use dying when you can live as an example.”

_ Haha,  _ Akira thought to himself, _ how ironic _ .


	6. Fortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secret futures are hard to keep when there's a soothsayer...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter and long wait, I need these breaks to keep working on what I need to. School's tough, but so is work and athletics and... I have too much going on.

_ A Few Days Prior _

“Hmmmm… It appears as if fate is still complicated when it comes to you, Kurusu-kun.” Chihaya moaned in frustration, “I’m not sure what to make of this.”

The boy sat there silently, much to her annoyance.

“Well… you seem to be fated with another, not in terms like star-crossed lovers, but like… Adversaries. But some part of your enemy wishes, or does it forcefully embed itself into you?

“Further into your fate… a great change will occur in your monotonous life that you have anticipated… no, that doesn’t make any sense. Your life’s been crazy, from what I’ve read before! Are you really  _ bored  _ with it??!”

Akira chuckled, because she had  _ no idea _ just what made his life so monotonous.

“Oh, maybe  _ this  _ is it…!  _ ‘A great change shall occur at the dusk of this year, and it shall no longer return to… day…’  _ No, that isn’t it.”

She took his hand again, and she felt his pulse and something odd with it, then reset her cards. The picture it painted was more clear to her.

“Uhm…  _ ‘You are augmented with a connection to the enemy that you must save, a present from a piece of them and the onlookers who live in the moon for enduring this recycled year, and insurance to your endeavor.’  _ No!”

Akira shook his head, “Don’t worry, Chihaya-san. I actually expected you to be the first one to realize this, but would you believe me if I said this year has repeated three hundred eighty-seven times?”

“A-absolutely not!” the fortune teller denied, but he only laughed in response.

“I knew it’d be hard to talk about,” Akira admitted, “but your fortunes also referred to reliving a year a lot, yeah? I wouldn’t deny it.”

“Oh my stars, I can’t believe it.” she slumped back in her seat in defeat, much to Akira’s amusement.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m in a pretty steep debt! I need to repay you for all those times you’ve saved me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the fact that I'm working to the bone every day, I love it. I'm excited for my job as a coach. I've always been pretty good at sport technique and the like, and I find that I strangely love to teach.
> 
> Don't let just one fascination swallow your life, guys. I know it's antiquated, and you've heard it a million times, but everything feels so much better when you're doing something more with your life. 
> 
> I'm giving you all homework for the next two weeks. I know, homework sucks, but this homework will have you feeling better about yourselves.  
> If you don't feel good about yourself, give the kindness and praise you desire to others.  
> If you think you're weak and pathetic, do a short workout routine. Plank for 30 seconds, do some sit-ups, try something little by little. You don't have to be the best, because you're good enough just trying your best.  
> If you hate how messed up everything feels, try cleaning your living space up. Try some puzzles, try unscrambling some math equations or doing word searches. Small things make you feel accomplished, and you should do your best to cherish every little victory you have.
> 
> Most of all, I want you guys to love. Try and fill yourself with experiences to help you with the rest of your life.


	7. Strength II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira feels the chill run down his spine when "Igor" questions his activities.
> 
> Yaldabaoth knows, yet he remains calm - the cocky bastard...
> 
> "Play the game, Kurusu," he told himself, "beat him at his own game. Wipe the smile off his ugly mug."
> 
> Despite willing himself, he still can't hide his discomfort.

Justine was wary of the Inmate this time around, his odd behavior towards the two. He was very nice to Caroline, and encouraged Justine. He wouldn’t come to fuse, much to her confusion.

“Don’t worry Caroline, Justine, I’ll speak to the Seekers, see what they can do.”

“Don’t talk down to us like we need your help,  _ Inmate!”  _ Caroline barked at him, but he didn’t flinch - he only stood there and smiled.

“My, my… your confidence has evolved quite a bit, I must say.” Master told the Inmate, who nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice, “It seems that you have spoken to the entity above me, the one who speaks in rhymes.”

“Yes…” the Inmate stiffly replied.

“I’m almost jealous that you have been visiting the Domain more than the world of your own heart… you must feel liberated there.”

“Quite the contrary, it’s bare and full of death.”

“Igor” only grinned, fully aware that his corruption was responsible for the state of the Domain.

“And how fares Herr Früchten, Trickster?”

_ He’s trying to probe for intel. I won’t let him. _

“Are you not able to visit?”

“Check your arrogance,  _ Inmate!  _ Our Master has devoted his time to your rehabilitation!” Caroline yelled.

“Do not work yourself up, Caroline, his question is not without warrant,” the imposter switched his crossed legs, “I have not seen humanity incarnate since the reconstruction of the cognitive world was completed, and I have a general idea of what the entity is like at this time by observing the state of Mementos.”

Akira seemed satisfied, and then he left his cell to the world of forms - the Velvet Room was left quiet and dark enough for Caroline to recall the “Seekers”.

She could only see partially, but she lined herself into an auditorium-like room to be taught by a being in the form of a pale and jagged insectoid - with the blank face of no-one and everyone and the twisted legs like a raptor, hands malformed and like talons. She recalled its name as William Tarant, the gaunt instructor clad in black linens like a funeral who taught the course about human cognition.

  
  


_ “Gregor Samsa ist nicht so wichtig - the man doesn’t have to be, see? Humans confide in characters who don’t have any identity of their own, they project and therefore relate. They make it important in their minds, and because they believe it to be important, it becomes important…” _

  
  


A classmate, older, raised his hand.

  
  


_ “Was ist es, Herr Arisato-kun?” _

  
  


He appeared to be tired, with white hair that covered his eye.  _ “What happens to those who were completely forgotten…?” _

Instructor Tarant scoffed,  _ “Vergiss es, Herr Arisato-kun. Deine Freunde haben dich vergessen. They will not come for you. They can’t reach you here, Herr Tür-Kind-kun, it is unfortunate that you have faith in humanity, where not even Herr Früchten does.” _

  
  


_ “That’s not true, Tarant-san. Prometheus-sama has assured me-“ _

  
  


_ “Do not have faith, have only trust. Irrationality plagues them, Herr Tot-Kind-kun. Faith has brought much struggle to man, see?”  _ Tarant motioned to the board where he showed casualties caused by religious beliefs,  _ “Even one’s own man wouldn’t listen to truth with humans, they like to play their lives on deaf ears or die because they can’t take it. That is what Seekers are for, to relieve the Reckoners on their mortality quotas. We rehabilitate these mans into leaders, we give them hope. Because unlike faith, hope has served man. Man does not serve hope, like man does faith.” _

  
  


Arisato shook, upset,  _ “Then I know they will come. They have, they will. I won’t be here forever.” _

  
  


The teacher appraised Arisato’s resolve, a hum drawled on unliving lips,  _ “Ah, es tut mir leid, Herr Arisato-kun, I do forget that you burn the way you do. You are far more suited in the flesh of a Reckoner, but your devotion to cultivate mankind over mourning of its loss is astonishing. Wunderbar. _

_ “No, when someone is forgotten about, they do not disappear - only when the real world fuses with the cognitive world does that occur, but safeguards have been placed to prevent such horrifying a thing.” _

  
  


Arisato was then satisfied, and sat down.

  
  


_ “To continue, the new model of the cognitive world is known as the Metaverse, and bases it’s core functionality upon man’s desire, aber ich habe keine Lust… oh je, es ist nicht so witzig… the Metaverse is divided between an individual’s powerful distorted desires known as Palaces, and then the collective unconscious known as Mementos - a safeguard that is put in place to prevent any malicious man from destroying the world. The other variants of cognitive worlds, such as the ‘TV world’ or ‘Tartarus’ have regressed into secondary and tertiary plains of cognition, as their foundations and laws are potentially dangerous in any case, so the Architects have taken to harvesting their exosensual mycelium to develop a symbiotic nervous system that can hypothetically be used for interconnected communication between two vessels. Lesser versions of this fluid will be piped through Mementos to the Depths in order to have the collective unconscious react quickly to alterations in the atmosphere. _

_ “The overseer is the same one we’ve had for a little over twenty years, Igor… Darbieten. For the secondary and tertiary plains, there are no overseers, just Seekers. This course, as you know, is to test the eligibility of each of you candidates to become the next attendant to the Velvet Room, where you will work with Igor.” _

  
  


A knock then sounded on the door, where Tarant stormed over in frustration at the interruption,  _ “Wer das fick- ag, man! Herr Ilda, you are interrupting meine Klasse, begone.” _

Herr Ilda defied Tarant’s commands, and stormed into the room clad in all white cloth as opposed to Tarant’s attire, cleanly laid out suit with a pitch black perfect anthropomorphic form and no face.

_ “These are the candidates to rehabilitate the mortals? Pathetic.”  _ Ilda growled,  _ “I gave the Lord my domain, and you let the mortals run rampant like animals. I was a fool to trust the very embodiment of them with the job of a god.” _

_ “Leave this classroom, Ilda Matrix, or I shall call upon the wrath of which is naught-“ _

_ “Silence, abomination. I will have the power to destroy that amalgamated corruption and reclaim what is rightfully mine.” _

Ilda vanished from the room, much to Tarant’s anger and frustration.

_ “Hubris, he has! No-one can destroy man, we must nourish it.” _


	8. Aeon I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrift in his subconscious, Akira found himself in the arms of a familiar presence, known through past lives and preincarnations. Even when speaking to the reaper of his soul, he finds himself soothed in the vaguely recollected vibe of the stranger to harvest his untouchable form. The brief moments of calm before the storm was his only rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. ;-;

He drifted into the Domain, as he did more often than the Velvet Room. It was absent, though he knew that the lakes of blood that filled on plots of detached land were of his own - the strange throb that irritated his brain and itched where he could not scratch. The Reckoners hummed beside him, one in particular wrapped in an ebony shell that glistened the rainbow like gasoline exhausts on the pavement, but it was oddly pretty seeing it dance in the backdrop of space and nothing. They flocked in groups called Mourns, and they mated while singing the songs of the dead - Reckoners were born of the souls of forgotten humans who had died and couldn’t remember themselves. Some became Reckoners by choice, though, the conscious reapers who would make death soft and soothing to stave off their unconscious fears of night. This Reckoner was aware instead of pure, they sought to make dying painless because his was not - he had died mutilated across the pavement, where he forgot himself and jumped because nobody was there to remember him. When he hit the asphalt on the interstate highway, he was still alive, but his bones were broken and they poked into his lungs and they filled with blood until he couldn’t breathe - he lived ten minutes on the road while his entrails spilled out and he felt the burning of the asphalt at his open wounds where his chest split and poured like a tributary.

His name was gone, forgotten even by himself, but he called himself Willow.

He followed along a girl who would sneak out at night, because the sound of death beat loud by her. He fretted over her, worried that the little girl would die before she needed to. It reminded him of someone, he had told Akira once, that he had forgotten the name of but desperately needed to save.

Willow called the girl Moonchild, because she had the palest skin and dark hair that shimmered against the pale moonlight - she danced and played into the nearby creek, and would always visit the old well and leave flowers. She had a wistful look about her face, and it never left as she danced into the nightly breeze.

Akira found it sad, that the man who had to carry the dying and forgotten into a peaceful sleep where they’d never wake up and see the stars again, or admire their reflection in the waters, was such a gentle and kind soul. It was clear that he had wisdoms that went beyond his identity, that he might’ve been a silent hermit in his life. He’d always stay away from Mourns, by himself, as he roamed the expanses of the Domain in search for the gentle life he found on Earth - to no avail.

_ “Do not step upon the grass, Gladiolus, they are gentle and caring for your inhale whilst you ache in your nervous stem…” _

Willow called Akira Gladiolus because he remembered, unlike himself.

_ “In you was planted purple Hyacinths, they beckon you to mend the past, or perhaps prevent the future? It’s voice is straining, I can tell behind the cauliflower trauma of your ears - the phantom pains once more, blossomed the petals of his pleading words. Do you heed him, as a Rhododendron?” _

Akira hummed for a moment before he could process, adrift in space as his arms were crossed. “I’m afraid of what he’s done in the past. I’m afraid he’ll remember, and then hate me.”

_ “The Hyacinth that speaks to you thinks not, it beckons you, part of the bouquet with the purples and of the Amaryllises, the Black-Eyed Susan, he is the Anemone. He lacks the bed to return to if he rejects your help - he would have accepted death, satisfied both his and your adversaries with his corpse.” _

The sky opened, the Sclera ready, despite how relaxed Akira was. He gave Willow a sad look, but the Reckoner only shook his faceless head,  _ “Worry not of me, Gladiolus, for my days here are eternal. I may not meet you on the plain of living, I shall be with you - the darkest part of your shadow, who shrouds you from the unrelenting world, and who will soothe you to this world.” _

The Reckoner then latched onto Akira’s torso, and made his way up to the Sclera to meet with Tremulant, the singularity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been really depressed lately everyone, sorry to say. My inconsistent uploads aren't because I don't have anything to post, but because I don't even have the motivation to post in the first place.
> 
> I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you all.


	9. The Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira enters the Sclera for some answers, but he leaves with plenty more questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

“Behold my glow, once more I show, beckoned thee unto me, aware of the query you have come to see. Not of the rhyme I speak in, but of the time you teach in - exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed, unassailable membrane up the nervous divide. Neural flesh a neutral mesh, augmentation in your installation. Where you have the implants, his shade in mendicants - speaking to you through foreign yet known voice, whether you heed is your choice.” Tremulant told Akira before he continued, “I have abandoned my methodology of appointments, the skin of man needs no false emollients; action is the name, I have disregarded and taken blame. Tremulant vowed to become impartial and virtuous, even if the path is arduous - as you have done, I will follow you even if the darkness has won; for mankind yearns to flourish despite their urges to perish.”

Akira was confused, unsure of how Tremulant would stave off the rampant desires of man, “What do you do to safeguard yourself from being corrupted?”

“As I said, no man truly wants to be dead. Der Beratung der Waage acts as my protection from particular infection - my allied ring of tourniquet along the neck to prevent and circumvent what the demiurge set. Their perceptions are introduced despite their concessions; falsity manipulated by the Matrix who had acted before, scarcity opposite of the phlegm of your pores.” the entity showed a reality similar to the Qliphoth world in place of the white, the streets ran plentiful with translucent red and the ground yielded morbid structures of bones. Humans sat into the walls of buildings that were once made of steel but made calcified as teeth, with cavities the same shape of the resident prisoners that excreted suffocating waterfalls of the dripping gelatin with slight red pigment that emitted a similarly-colored miasma that dissolved into the air.

“What the hell is this stuff??!” Akira looked around frantically at the fluid glaze of membrane that flowed by his feet. He stopped his observation of the surroundings once he noticed that the capillaries, wrapped around the bones of the city and the once-buildings that housed presumed Shadows, slithered across their snug wraps and into a formation at the feet of where Tremulant stood; they formed a pile and the ebony shells that cracked themselves along bone paths splintered off unto the pile with the bones that bound themselves jaggedly into form of malformed human shape - an echo to the ugliness beneath human skin and flesh, shadow in comparison to the flushed vivisection the assembly tried to mimic.

The bones of Qliphoth became Tremulant’s, the arteries and veins substituted striated muscle that crookedly and wickedly latched themselves unto the skeleton of defects, the skin was carapace of pearlescent black that ran with luminary carotids as crevices and flourishes to the cold skinless shell, the blood replaced by the neural algae that sweated itself from the captive men in their holes, the system which enabled cold and dead flesh of the forgotten and forsaken to move in biological norms with their robotic mimic of man - Tremulant’s hollow crown a misshapen skull dreamt in the mares of fear, humanity’s sickly mistaken aversion to death and the clock that ticks like war drums that pound, embodied in the vessel of steel organics gleamed back the hollowed light of Tremulant’s white eyes within the absence of sclera made black by the cool darkness that envelops the unseen. The bare skull was then covered by the splintered obsidian skin in angular likeness to men of stone.

“The bones of Qliphoth are the myths of man that fell absent from their minds, such remnants that the entity Tremulant finds. They are betrayed dreams. The hail of the streams is rendered by mind itself, formations harvested from the fungal waste, unaged from life on the shelf. Recycled as your year, it becomes your aid; the conduit reaches here from the one adamant to fade. Heart’s defiant speak as opposed to weak, unchecked thrive of detriment. As wrought with fear you feel, acute for him who has no wheel; crutch abandoned as his pride took root, the deterioration he’s prone to refute. Your link between him enabled by the membrane Satori, symbiotic multicellular secondary brain for you to see - more than just what others do, but another’s mind beyond you. Rainbow Matter, to save the tatter, the forsaken, the vacant.” the incarnation of man told Akira while his body writhed with life like worms were his muscle, like the adjust of geometric imperfection scales with every wheezed inhale and exhale.

The entity shuffled and faced his palm to the sky, as if he beckoned the stars to cry into his grasp, to leak their sights into his clutches in mourning of the horrors of man they’ve observed. A cloudless rain of the liquid gelatin, thick and sticky composition that emitted the ironic smell of formaldehyde that would normally preserve the dead - yet this mass of see-through red jello-like formation was obviously alive, pulsing like a heartbeat where it fell in the deity’s talons made of spare and forgotten organics. The look on his face was almost forlorn, as if he held the very lungs of the world in his hands, viscera reduced to a mush of living.

Akira was beyond confused, of course, but then he felt the beating at the back of his head, saw it synchronize with the surges of the strange material. He then watched as from the ground emerged four unseen formations shaped like Shadows, Personas, projections of the mind that could be found inside the heart.

One took the form of Amon, the demon who induces eagerness, with his blue skin and canine teeth and reptile tail. 

Another emerged as Mephistopheles, and he rode atop a hybrid between Behemoth and Leviathan, where he possessed the horns the rhinoceros and the tusks of an elephant, but his elephant ears were his gills and from the back of the singular horn sprawled dorsal fins, aerodynamic face scowled as a beast that hung over by the legs of a massive mammoth.

Formed from the ashes came the cunning Andrealphus, a dark figure covered in jagged feathers that may have once shimmered and gleamed.

Eligos then came, rickety and marred flesh, with a judging stare and lance clutched in his hand made of rigor mortis relapses.

_ “Herr Fürchten, why have you called for us to meet with this… mortal? His existent flesh displeases me.”  _ said the one in the form of Mephistopheles,  _ “Do you command unto me another Faust to trick?” _

“Nay, Grausamkeit. Listen to what I say,” Tremulant began, “My words are not made flesh, speak to the mortal cordially or be made unto ash.”

Amon then adjusted his inhuman and feral-shaped hands into question, akin to a vessel of Pavlov lore,  _ “The Universe, Sator, Tarantism, Tremulant, Prometheus, Fürchten, Defier, Incarnate, Lord, Progenitor… who is this human you have brought us? What waters are held amongst his arteries?” _

Akira was dizzy with all the names, what was happening around him was all too confusing to follow.

“Salutations, incarnations. You fragments have not forgotten your sense of propriety, introduce yourselves properly.” the entity growled.

_ “You must be blind to not see it, Avernus. That his soul holds the soul of the merciful and vengeful, the balance of social and cosmological order...”  _ Andrealphus tapped his own foot to Mephistopheles, Grausamkeit, Avernus?  _ “...slayer of the demiurge, augmented body by Herr Tarant himself.” _

Avernus scoffed,  _ “There are no Cerpin Taxt humans, none entered the conduit of the Domain, my Reckoners assured. The ESP has been clean, and certainly not this mortal could traverse its plain.” _

The incarnate of Amon only sighed and shook his head before looking to Tremulant for some sort of approval before he snapped his sharp fingers, and Qliphoth became a half-sunken ship stranded in a fleet of other sundered vessels, lantern light danced on the shimmering surface of the water. 

_ “Apologies, Decide. You must be very confused, but I shall try my best to help you.”  _ the demon spoke over the shouting argument between Avernus and Andrealphus,  _ “My siblings and I are fragments of Sator, but you call him Tremulant, yes?” _

Akira dumbly nodded, not really sure what to think or say about this  _ mess. _

_ “I am known as Nettheit to some, others as Amon, or just Temperance. I don’t quite mind. I am the incarnation of humanity’s irrational positivity, which doesn’t necessarily mean good. In excess, human emotion can be detrimental.  _

_ “My sibling, Grausamkeit, Mephistopheles, the Devil, or just Avernus, is irrational negativity, which isn’t necessarily bad in of itself. We are a balance. _

_ “Eligos, Gebieter, or simply Judgement, is the arbiter and augur of us, like the frontotemporal lobe. He decides and foresees, he is wise and calculated, however he lacks the creativity and emotion that the rest of us do. _

_ “Erfahren, Thoth, Vox, Andrealphus, the Moon, is the human capacity for intelligence, he rests in the minds of people, stimuli aware and unaware. He’s intuitive, and it seems as though he has some semblance of what you are just by your presence, Decide.” _

“That didn’t really help at all.” Akira confessed to the giant demon before him.

_ “It is useless to fret, Decide.”  _ the skeletal one - Judgement - said,  _ “You have been elected for your position by the arrogated. Darbieten has chosen well, but it seems the demiurge in his place has sought only conflict.” _

The yelling between the Devil and the Moon died down, until the Devil picked back up again,  _ “That damned demiurge! I knew we should’ve slaughtered them all!” _

“Even false icons are admired, Mephistopheles. It matters not what you desired, though this fact does not please.” Tremulant reprimand, “Yaldabaoth’s treachery was not hard to see, but I am not prideful when I say that I enabled him anyway.”

The Devil fumed back,  _ “Why then, Herr Fürchten?!” _

Judgement interrupted Tremulant’s response,  _ “It was for man to conquer adversity, and from the ashes to emerge a hero, a leader. Hence; “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” To cleanse humanity.” _

“Aye, as birds fly. Mephistopheles, your pains to do as you please, I feel them too, much more than you do.” the entity sadly spoke, “I am aware your faith in mankind is dwindled, the web of sins they’ve committed have only spindled. As William Tarant always said,  _ ‘have hope over faith, for hope has served man, where man serves faith’ _ , for recycled terms are dead. Have hope that there is light in the dark, since no being is clean and stark.”

_ “The Tarant family is rife with hubris,”  _ scoffed the Devil.

_ “As are you, Avernus. As are we.”  _ pointed out the Moon,  _ “Tremulant is not just that, but he is Tarantism. And gestated of Tarantism are the Tarant family, where we are merely fragments of Tarantism, they are his amalgamated children.” _

_ “Were it not for Wolfram’s hubris, we would all have died.”  _ Judgement pointed out _ , “He excelled as an Architect to not just worlds, but of flesh. In absence of vessels in the VERITAS, no mind would look for us among the stars - nor belief prevade, despite our perverse presences among expatriate-bosoms in the pockets of this foreign home. His experiments hath yielded the augmented Decide-spirit that emerges in the bodies of suitable candidates, the Fool. Not only that, but his research created Satori, the very mycelium that augments minds, the symbiosis of our selected fates, with the grounded bodies of our forefathers. We hath abandon, but the ways of archaic sentiment is all but pragmatic to our survival. Do not let the past puppet you so, brother.” _

The Devil and Judgement then had a staredown, back and forth between each other until the Devil relented. Temperance appeared as if he were done with all of his siblings, and directed Akira’s view to a plaque on the ship.

  
  


> **_IT IS DECIDED THAT ALL GODS MUST DIE…..SO AS TO MAINTAIN SOCIAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ORDER, MOATILLIATTA REMAINS MERCIFUL AND VENGEFUL._ **
> 
>   
>    
> 

_ “To grossly oversimplify this, you are basically Moatilliatta. The very first time you entered this plain, you were altered by Doctor Wolfram Tarant, an Architect, to become the ideal vessel of a power that is given to all of the past Fools, in the recurring legend of Moatilliatta.”  _ the Moon then piped in, told Akira of the unfortunate fate he was attributed to.

_ “Tremulant was born of nothingness, he was but a film of absentness in space. He was an invisible amalgam of information, without form, ephemeral. He technically isn’t a deity or a god, simply an entity, an accumulation of information that was made sentient by the first self-aware being.”  _ Judgement explained to the still very confused Fool,  _ “His dreams reflect the dreams of man, his desire the desires of man. His accumulated dreams yielded a legend of a being who would destroy god, because humans feared god. But no god existed, and because they believed then god was born from Tremulant’s information, his power, and reigned over the world. People’s beliefs birthed the ESP, and actuality enveloped it in the Domain. _

_ “Man was fearful of god, and they wished for a hero to save them. Then, there became one. The one who killed god, a nameless individual. After death, the man was taken into the Domain by Tremulant, who named him Reaper, and he was the very first Reckoner. The distorted creations of the god led to the accidents that were the Tarants… malformed anthropomorphic creatures infused with the features of other races. Where one arm would be of mere mortal Terraruinan, yet half-massed half-mast capillaries along metacarpi - the hand of the dead world - would infect the paupiette of nucleic tendencies in a cancer of psionic aptitude. They were named for Tarantism, due to the nature of these sporadic anomalies. Quarantined from divine amalgolation ephemera, amputated from their prophet of truth vicariously through differentiation in physicality, these Tarants are more analogous to mediation; a saint, in colloquial and mortal tongue, but of the process we deem “Tarantism” via the perversion of our amorphous image - to lack veins, blood, skin, but mimic the leathered skin as we will - the depiction of mortality and physicality within us a damning hubris, thus when theoretical became in the flesh, the corrupted veins of demiurges that flowed the impossible viscera intravenously belonged to the bodies of malformed and unstable with a soul in a corpse that were houses divided against themselves, the Tarants. Wolfram is an Architect fused with a mongrel, Hawks a Seeker with birds, Eliza a Seeker with reptiles, just to list a few examples. The Reaper’s duty was first to keep the malevolent god in check, but later Tremulant compromised with the dead god by allowing him and false icons to exist but not intervene with humans. _

_ “Wolfram had attempted to create offspring in the Domain, but it failed because the Domain only houses things that certainly exist, aside from the thoughts of the Sclera or ESP, where imagination is machination, the verbatim reality to only the observer, but never truly an absolute until others are to witness. It brought him much grief, and when he saw that the false god’s subordinates were continuously meddling with humans, he created an iconoclastic power and named it after his miscarriaged child, Moatilliatta. His disowning fathers were not to taint more of man, for he knew too much of the truth, that they were Terraruinans that hijacked the vessels of thought itself, and thought knows very little bounds, Decide. You must see through that looking glass of yours, don’t you? Imagination hath birthed many woes, yet to have someone else jump into them and wear it like a skin? Art thou truly thineself? Art we thou? Art thou I? Its an indoctrination of freewill, a choice one may make, to enslave the ideals with one’s own is no better than a puppeteer and his mere toys. The Terraruinans were an avaricious people, always sought the next serving of glass to devour, the next stars to kill - they followed us into the void to make union with a better people, the Teraquetzals, and mortal vice conjugated with virtue, the birth of humanity. Those that latched to their thoughts, therefore, were no different than parasitic vices that invaded a balanced people, ideas of control and manipulation were birthed from their darkest depths, and like the eggs of snakes, they cracked and slithered out as demiurges to hinder humankind. Rather than blatant malevolence, they are merely the enacting of oppositional forces, as gravity is to birds, or the ebb and flow of tide to golden shores.  _

_ “Such sin birthed tetragrammatons, theology and anthology to justify the slaughter of warrior tribes. You will find that the answer was Locke all along, but Rosseau as well - despite these rather Hobbesian rantings. Indoctrination is not civil, nor virtuous, despite what the book may claim - the sky is not a sea, the Earth is not in a dome, the ownership of others is unethical, and the morals of mere men should never transcend that of an arbiter - the population of holy places indicates the trends of inhumane action; this drove Wolfram mad. He could not unsee the atrocities committed against the children of Earth; the genocide of a people, the declaration of units instead of men, women, children - humans as ornaments, humans as vermin, “Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.” The archaic practices of mutilation to serve a dark cloud, the virgins thrown into the pits of the Earth, the destruction of the sanctity of childhood. They only continue to infect the world because people think of them, but how the doctor loathed patience, he went mad at the madness, as a keeper mimics jesters, and harvested what little remained of their mortal bodies. From out of the horrendous experiments, She was born - as Vismund Cygnus was of a dying.  _

_ “She is, like he, a union of Teraquetzal and Terraruinan-Tetragrammaton, but of a special sort of spirit. He ripped a portion of himself, the greatest Teraquetzal, Philemon, from his heart and formed it with the greatest of befelled demiurges - Nyarlathotep - a potential for ultimate greatness, or ultimate elimination. Hence the existence of the Wild Card. Tremulant had wished to change everything - durmiendo en paz, abre los ojos, todo cambiará - but Wolfram refused.” _

“Then how come people seem to know about this story? Like The Mars Volta? Are you guys just fans?” Akira was skeptical, because there was way more references to the band than needed.

  
  


Tremulant merely laughed in response in that  _ terrifying  _ amalgam voice, “Yes, that very well seems to be the case, but there’s also importance in this trace. They scream the scribbles of their friend deceased, starving artist who was terribly diseased. Malevolent addiction ran through his veins, our ESP-delivered advisory was all in vain. He took his life despite what was said, and his repeated visits had rendered him dead.”

  
  


The Wild Card still didn’t understand what the entity said, but nodded anyway. Temperance seemed to notice this, and explained,  _ “He just means that the lyrics were based off the recorded trips of a poet that was their friend.” _

“Wait… so I can come here if I get high?” Akira scratched his head, and Tremulant only stared down in blank disapproval.

“That would not be ideal, despite the appeal. Less than likely you won’t be sound, no meaningful discussion to be found.” the entity elaborated, “Additionally, the Satori embedded in your head would react negatively, and thusly we shall see the extent of your mortality.”

“But what about the drugs used on me during the interrogation? It’d be bad if I  _ died  _ after your people have gone through all this effort.”

“There is no effort made, that is your misunderstanding. These are the givens of entities of our standing. We safeguard the world but do not seek to intervene, per se. Humanity shall birth their own heroes, and we shall help them along the way.” Tremulant added, “Especially in matters beyond your base capabilities such as this, but we give you the powers so humanity will not go astray again, nor things go amiss.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. Will I die?” the leader of the Phantom Thieves demanded of the entity, who would not relent.

“Perhaps that is your destiny, to die. Nobody chooses martyrdom as their path, they merely fall into the shoes of one when things have gone awry.”

“You don’t know, do you?” the realization hit Akira like a bus, and he crumbled down into himself. He lost his mask, he didn’t need it there. They all knew what he felt.

_ “There is a great chance of your death, Decide. There always has been.”  _ Judgement said, _ “Do not fret over your mortality, it is illogical. All things must die.” _

_ “Eligos, you know nothing of his grief, of his fears.”  _ the Devil growled to the rationality of man, defending him surprisingly _ , “Nothing of his desires, not of his self-hatred, not of the drive to atone, to flog himself for the suffering he believes he’s caused.” _

_ “Stay quiet, Mephistopheles. As always, your unhealthy ambitions are clouding your judgement.”  _ the skeletal being frowned.

_ “No, he’s right.”  _ stood Temperance, confident _ , “You don’t know the drive he has to protect his friends, to help others, to help himself. You know nothing.” _

The Moon sat quietly and noted the banter. Tremulant sighed alongside him, “This is the state of my mind, Moatilliatta. I wish this wasn’t the case, but my confidence in your mortal self is low, Akira. You have failed this many times to the point where reason has no rhymes, the odds are infinitely against you - but that has never stopped you from doing what you do. You are a rebellious force, I have hope that you emerge victorious, of course. The reaction of the drug may reveal too much knowledge that Satori has to your mind, which has potentially lethal repercussions we’ve come to find. Too much information into your head, and the overload might kill you dead.”

The Phantom Thief scoffed in response, before he continued to scratch his head and came up with an idea. “What are the abilities of Reckoners?”

Tremulant looked unsure of Akira’s request, but answered anyway, “Reckoners are very much the incarnations of death, and all his supposed depictions in breath. They alleviate the subjects to their eternal slumber, and deliver their souls to certain places depending on if they remember. ‘They’ being friends of the dead, or the dead inside their head. Sometimes both, mostly one, and sometimes they have forgotten entirely. It’s sad to see that there are those who exist, simply roaming around blindly. They excrete chemicals to return the comatose souls, so long as their vital organs have no holes. My, my… is this a solution that you imply?”

Akira nodded in response only for Tremulant to warn him further.

“The Reckoner that must accompany you must remember, you know. Your selected Reaper has already established himself as Willow. You will die if you cannot circumvent injection, so your objective is prevention.”

Akira disagreed, however, “What if I can get him to remember?”

Tremulant hummed in consideration, scratching at the jagged carapace over his split jaw, “What you suggest is arrogant, Akira. Perhaps you have grown foolhardy with the implant of Moatilliatta…”

He was about to relent, but then the Sclera returned to its original state with Tremulant as a white human-shaped entity and the world was a blank white plain. The demons were gone from the world, and it was just them.

“...Tremulant likes this, yes, Tremulant likes this very much! Your deviance bleeds in not just your words, but your actions, and such.

“Were I to prohibit the utterance of my name, you would sing it into fame! You’re greedy, dear boy, but it’s not bad to be needy, your wanting brings me joy! For I have not seen yearning like this in years, your blatant defiance is music to my ears! 

“I care not, dear boy, for greed does not always destroy. Your greed is love, a form of greed that none other does surpass; none truly are above, among the fields of ghosts and glass. The Domain shelters all, be it humane or not, but your desire has shown me hope among it all; that mankind shall never fall. Not with you around, dear boy, and I admire you, even if you’re a little coy.”

The Fool wasn’t sure what to think about Tremulant’s joy, “Are you channeling your inner ‘Lord Capulet’, Tremulant?”

The amalgam laughed in response,  _ again _ , that horrifying voice, where he held his sides and vigorously cackled. “ _ No! _ Stop talking, the laughter must  _ go!”  _ the entity made the effort to compose itself, “I am ecstatic more than phlegmatic, my typical behavior has shifted paradigm - your selection was sublime. That Nose knows what he’s doing, I thought he was trouble brewing.

“And yes, I am - impersonating Shakespearean.”

Tremulant let the Fool go and return into the Domain, for the entity knew that the chosen leader would be exceptional in whatever he put his mind to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've hit an atrocious writer's block again, to be perfectly honest. Don't worry, though! Spook time has given me the inspiration of a Cerpin Taxt on his fanatic scribbles.
> 
> Sorry about all of the TMV references as well, I look back almost half a year later and cringe. It's like some crummy, self-insert crap - the kind that I loathe. I've enlightened myself to other artists, though, such as SIAMES, Rare Americans, Jethro Tull, and whatnot.
> 
> I've been thinking about what artist goes to which Phantom Thief, though. I don't have much of a clue for Ann though.
> 
> Heart - Makoto Niijima  
> The Pretenders(?) - Haru Okumura  
> I feel like Ryuji would be into more punk stuff, which I don't really know a lot of. Maybe like Anti-Flag would fit, but I also debate if it should be based off of Sing Me A Fiction because of their album Hole in the Sail, very pirate-y. Or Jethro Tull could fit, Aqualung is a pretty good song on sensory details, but not much information. Hell, maybe even Minus The Bear.  
> Yusuke would be into some artsy crap, I know it. Either something orchestral, or cerebral. Getting King Crimson vibes, maybe Rush but that can be too upbeat. Something more slow-moving and all-encompassing like Epitaph or Moonchild just ooze of Yusuke vibes.  
> Futaba... she'd be into something more keyboard/soundboard-oriented. Something like SIAMES, definitely. Don't know too many bands like that with a female vocalist, though, but it's a little weird to me that Futaba's Prometheus is a guy while she's a girl. Maybe SIAMES could work.  
> Morgana? Um...? Something catchy and lighthearted while deep, so like Rush. I don't know, leave me suggestions.


	10. Aeon II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is an ancient tale of a man named Faust who made a deal with the devil, Mephistopheles.
> 
> Faust obtained unfathomable knowledge, but at a great price.
> 
> Knowledge is power, but avarice towards all things may lead to the fall of great many things. Such greed has befallen the infamous Doctor Wolfram Tarant, Tnarat Marflow, idiosyncratic walking insanity, with his hobbled, malformed steps, and his hubristic cackles that crack against his exposed ribs, no straightjacket issued, but miasmic anesthetic and scalpel as his glossolalia pours out of the overflow of his head. The nectar in low viscosity, in a hydrophobic cranium, is such a valuable resource.
> 
> Akira Kurusu sought the mongrel architect's knowledge, as the tongue of Tremulant was never so uncensored, a filtered, viscous thing. He wanted to know it all, but should he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for really late upload. Have work, sports, and the like. This is always how it is, dammit.

The Reckoner gently fluttered his torn webbed wraps, like silk the heavy fabric scraped the space behind him in his wake. Pale glowing eyes set to fondly appraise the boy in front of him, as if he were a gentle flower to be nourished across the space of the Domain.

_ “Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind… Gladiolus, remembrance. Haste makes waste, the currents will carry you to trample defiant earth.” _

“Don’t worry too much, Willow-san. I’m being mindful.” Akira replied whilst he tried to push himself through the asteroid belt of flat plains.

The reassurance didn’t serve much for Willow’s worry,  _ “You are so eager to meet this ‘Herr Doktor Tarant’, but he is the one who had you fall ill with this fate. I advise you, were you to retaliate, things would only go sourly for you.” _

The boy too young for comatose introductions merely hummed in vague acknowledgement while he sifted through the debris of the old portal to Tartarus, destroyed by the Architects to prevent Wolfram Tarant from escaping the tertiary plain due to his descent into madness.

_ “They shut him in for reason, too, Gladiolus. They say he is mad, that he is an Aconite, grown to be so with the corruption of his world. Rhododendron, Gladiolus.”  _ the Reckoner fretted over the boy who would not listen _ , “Why do you search so hard for the Aconite Doktor, Gladiolus?” _

“I need to confirm something,” Akira kept shoving rubble past him.

_ “What is it that concerns you so, Gladiolus? Do I lack the answers that you seek?” _

“No, it’s-“ the teenager looked back hesitantly at the looming and crooked figure who worried for him, “I’m just… I’m told that he has answers that no one else would.”

_ “Could you not ask Cypress? Or perhaps even the Angrec? Amaranth??” _

“Who-“

_ “Cypress, the Reaper… der Beratung der Waage… and the one who is called Herr Fürchten…”  _ Willow explained, as he would often have to do to Akira, who had memorized flower meanings but knew not of who they indicated.

“No, Doctor Wolfram Tarant is the only one who I may see for this. Tremulant holds out on me, and has only so many words to explain…” he continued to dig deeper, much to Willow’s concern.

_ “... the other Reckoners murmur amongst themselves of the return of ‘Moatilliatta’, child of this ‘Herr Doktor Wolfram Tarant’...”  _ Willow began as he ebbed closer to the boy,  _ “... This old tree knows not of any newcomers to this place but you, Gladiolus. I know only that he let fungus to your brain to rot, but you have not told me the full story. I have seen your soul, how it dances with gold light, but… _

_ “... that light has been refined before, from the bodies of those before. I recognize it from the Seeker who had challenged Aconite.” _

Akira remained silent and working through the pale blue bricks, until he found the sealed trapdoor lid to someplace unseen. There were vague cuts on it, sad warnings, peeks into the past.

_ ‘MOATILLIATTA’S TIME CAPSULE’ _

He cracked the lid open, and a burst of air wheezed out the opening, unbridled gust. It blasted the teen back through he space without gravity, and into the wary hands of Willow. He found that the cold and gaunt hands were rigid and unsettling, like the anticipation of something but not knowing why. Akira held his breath as to not breathe in the ice, but found there no frozen water to worry over. It gave him a shiver.

_ “Caution, Gladiolus. You open the belongings of another, a divinity. It is forbidden for the mere comatose-“ _

“No, this was meant for me.” Akira interrupted the worried and frankly confused Reckoner, before he gazed through the hole of entry. The cylindrical walls were red, akin to Satori cells, and most likely the bosom of them based upon the high amounts of gelatinous excretions around the isolated destruction of the portal to the partially dismantled Tartarus.

_ “We are far from the Sclera, Gladiolus. I can feel the Mourns readying themselves.”  _ Willow looked around into the void _ , “We must be on the brink of the secondary plain of the Domain, the ESP. Hallucinations are becoming more apparent than actual cognition…” _

“That’s because Tartarus hasn’t been active in over twelve years.” Akira said before he slipped himself into the depths of the tube labeled  _ ‘MOATILLIATTA’S TIME CAPSULE’ _ , much to Willow’s dismay. The Reckoner knew it was fruitless to simply yell after the boy, so he slipped in after him - though he was a bit unsettled by how comfortable he felt in the dark wraps that motioned only down into an impossibility that defies object permanence.

He was lost when he emerged into a world that fell apart, a decay beyond any he’s ever seen. The blue and pink-tinted tiles were cracked in and overgrown with hollow and dry weeds that broke in the wind, a maximum vacancy felt in the absence tainted air. There was an odd cleanliness to that night sky without stars, with only a partial tower jackknifed on itself in a collapse of feats. The only thing keeping the sky from being completely empty was the pulsing yellow light surrounded by a shattered black shell that undulated with the movement. Akira was nowhere to be seen.

The imagery felt oddly reminiscent of something, but he couldn’t place it. Something about his past, one he couldn’t recall beyond the vision of death while he burnt on the pavement, the life that flashed before his eyes omitted. The overgrowth reminded him of something, where the pale plants would wrap on bleak architecture, paralleled with the verdant greens of his home or the small and antiquated yellow house atop an isolated mountainside in an alcove by a stream.

But were those truly his memories, or just implants?

The dilemma Willow always faced was whether certain memories were his or not. Reckoners inherit memories from the souls they reap, a sick form of payment for their necessary deeds. It was because the Reaper decided it was the best way to keep a steady flow of Reckoners, as Reckoners technically die after they remember themselves (unless the soul chose to become a Reckoner), and become either Seekers or Architects.

The cool and verdant mountainside isolated itself quite much from burning hot weather and boiling asphalt, after all.

He watched distantly as giants stepped in the horizon, more like Neanderthals fused with the components of Qliphoth than actual humanoid giants. Above in the stirred energy slowly drifted in a construct, like a cloud, but erupted with electrical blue plasma to the world in a glass formation maneuver. The loose particles peeled away from their places on the ground and drifted towards the neon destruction in the sky. It worried Willow in the back of his mind that Akira might have been hurled into the burn, as well. Meandering husks made their way to no place in particular. They used to be Shadows, but were forgotten about and discarded insecurities of man, left to rot with no true aim. 

A hollow creature stood beside him, jagged and empty of all his organs and merely stuck out the ground like a stick in the mud as it’s crooked spine hunched over. The empty face seemed like a carved out sock with stitches that failed to hold the holes closed. All except the eyes, which flowed in a pale light, not too dissimilar to Willow’s own.

_ “Reckoner, you do yourself no justice being here.” _

Willow was unsure of this world that fell absent of itself within itself, that ate itself inside out.  _ “What is this place? Who are you?” _

The empty being looked forlornly to the skyline, as if a lifetime truly could be spent there _ , “It used to have a name. ‘Tartarus’. Though, ever since the Architects began to dismantle this place, they began to call it ‘Ghosts of the Past; Ghosts and Glass’. They’ve melted the world into its bare components, they still try, even if their connection back to the Great Nothing has been severed by their own. They refuse to admit that their fellow Architects have abandoned them, just like us.” _

It did seem sad, this whole place. The fact that the Architects still resolved themselves to destroy when they were left, just as much.

Willow recognized the flying structure that glassed the world, and even the floating burn in the epicenter of it all. The Architects would use ships to glass down unnecessary dimensions to harvest them for their melded materials. For the cognitive worlds, they glasses them to produce more bases for Satori cells, where Wolfram Tarant would breathe life into it. The Architects that remained must’ve been coerced into cooperating with Wolfram, or they remained loyal to him believing that he can resurrect Moatilliatta in pure form. Perhaps it was their hubris that caused them to defy Tremulant, believing that Wolfram could unleash the power to oppose god and therefore bought into his antics. But Willow could only assume, since he had only heard blabbers - nothing real.

_ “What do you search for here, Reckoner? There’s nothing but deterioration… but I guess that’s what brought you here in the first place, isn’t it?”  _ the creature beside him jittered with chills,  _ “Maybe you’re here to execute the good Doctor, once and for all. Has he not been a thorn in the One’s side?” _

_ “I search for a stray human soul. He entered this place through ‘Moatilliatta’s Time Capsule’, what do you make of that?” _

_ “A human, you say? The last one who left that hole was no human, it was the Cage of Unborn. Returning to Doctor Wolfram, of course.”  _ the being smirked and cackled evilly,  _ “This Remnant is very excited to see their reunion, yes he is…” _

_ “You call yourself a Remnant? What is your name?”  _ the Reckoner asked.

_ “I know about as much you would be able to answer me, Reckoner.”  _ the strange creature- a Remnant -shrugged _ , “Direct all forbidden questions to Doctor Wolfram, where I’m sure you’ll find your friend.”  _ it then pointed to the makeshift camp before the fallen building where the gates end, the remainder of the bricks and rebars formed into a half-room building.

Willow nodded hesitantly, and followed to where the Remnant pointed him to. He still mulled over the archaic titles such as ‘the One’ and the ‘Great Nothing’, and wondered if the manner in which this world was cut off from elsewhere rendered the perceptions of its residents as dated as well. When he arrived at the gate, he reluctantly opened the steel bars through to the half-room where the Reckoner met the bizarre image of the half breed human-mongrel, Doctor Wolfram Tarant, who worked his profession on some sort of obsolete equipment. The Doctor immediately turned and noticed the Reckoner, and held himself open to Willow.

“Ah, if it isn’t H-131473! I haven’t seen you in ages!” it was awkward that the Doctor seemed to prompt a hug from the Reckoner, “It’s impolite to not greet your father, Fungaling.”

That had Willow beyond confused.

“Oh, I suppose you must be confused! I assumed you’d remember me somewhat that you’ve appeared before me.” Doctor Wolfram seemed a little upset, “You were born here, in this very lab. Well, technically… But here you were made suited to become a full-fledged Fungaling, ah… a Reckoner. A-as opposed to your original form. You were an avatar of death,  _ perfect  _ to become a Fungaling… one who inspires decay. I augmented you to become one, but it cost me your memories… to be a Fungaling you must surrender yourself.”

Willow let out a chilled exhale that shuddered at the speak of the Doctor, who spoke in only stuttered truths and fell timid under his scrutiny.

“W-well… since you don’t remember, I guess you have no reason to actually be  _ mad,  _ but I had to disfigure you… I…  _ no,  _ I  _ had  _ to…” the mongrel Architect scratched at the behinds of his ears restlessly, “The problem was that  _ he’d  _ recognize you, once he defeated his adversary… you’re the vessel I’ve perfected to become the perfect death, you see. The Reaper only stalks the cognitive world, but you…  _ you  _ are different.  _ You  _ are  _ very  _ real… tangible. No semblance of your past truly remains, haha, does it? Oh, how my hubris has hurt the world…”

The Reckoner shook his head in dismissal,  _ “Where is Gladiolus?” _

The hound-man quirked his brow before realization colored his face almost covered entirely with fur. He muttered to himself and paced back and forth, “Gladiolus the flower… remember… remember what? Fungalings don’t remember anything… re, as in repeat… replace… re-experience…? Oh, oh,  _ oh!  _ You mean  _ him?  _ How strange, you talk so postured in comparison to before the augmentations… perhaps… no…”

_ “Tell me where Gladiolus is, Aconite.” _ the oddly impatient Reckoner continued.

“I-I-I-I don’t  _ know!  _ Calm down,  _ Ry- Fungaling!  _ Moatilliatta hasn’t been here in… two… three… five… Gah! Just…  _ over a hundred years!?” _

_ “Don’t tell me lies, Aconite.”  _

“Nononono! Honestly! Well,  _ technically!  _ Not truly. If you’re searching for the vessel, you can just track down P5-387yR on my-“

_ “I search for no Moatilliatta. I search for Kurusu Akira.”  _ he almost growled, as if part of him reacted negatively to the mere idea of Moatilliatta. Maybe it was due to his past.

“A-ah? Kurusu Akira? My, my, my… I didn’t expect this augmentation to retain familiarity, but…” the Doctor paused his pacing and sighed, “...You see, Kurusu Akira is the newest bearer of Moatilliatta… Igor had made a prime selection to house the catalyst for my child, so-“

_ “Kurusu Akira is Moatilliatta?”  _ it was a bit concerning, like he had a revelation like this happen before… how long had he been a Reckoner, really? It felt like eons, but…

_ “How many years have passed?”  _ it was as if he might’ve lived shorter than he thought.

“O-oh? W-well…  _ technically  _ it’s only been twelve years, but time has looped several times due to the plunders of the Moatilliatta… six… eight… twelve… well, counting Kurusu’s three hundred eighty-seven, and Narukami’s one hundred thirty-two… then  _ his  _ nine hundred sixty-four… oh. That’s one-thousand four-hundred eighty-three years, well,  _ sort of…  _ it’s a bit closer to one-thousand three-hundred twenty-two years for you. One-hundred sixty-one deaths were made from reluctance to kill you.”

_ “What are these memories of death that I have then? Where I burn on the asphalt while impaled on my own lung?”  _ Willow narrowed his pale luminous eyes to the shaking dog-man.

“I can’t tell you that. I can see in you something, that you are… yes, how ironic you’ve returned to my child’s side like this, they still yearn for redemption, fairness.” Doctor Wolfram explained, “It was Moatilliatta’s will that you forget the suffering you had to impose, and it is also Moatilliatta’s duty that they return to you. Out of necessity. Out of self-preservation. Out of giving you a second chance. It’s not my place to divulge everything. He will help you, this Kurusu Akira. He may be wandering. Go find him.”

Willow was confused still, and he swam through the murk of his head, the dreariness between his ears, the grogginess in his vision - following Doctor Wolfram’s suggestion of seeking. He sought Akira Kurusu, who would have to explain why he didn’t divulge his identity as Moatilliatta. And he searched by following the morbid murals on the wall, written of death. There sat a stray Seeker, one of the few who lurked among the Remnants and Architects - by a story told on the wall, it was because most Seekers were hunted down in order to give the Architects full reign of the place.

The Seeker was tired and forsaken, digging lines into the dirt with frayed white hair that draped over his sore blue eyes. The Reckoner didn’t know that the beings born of the Domain could possibly succumb to worldly exhausts such as famine or plague, but the boy obviously had. And he seemed to see something in the Reckoner that lingered over him, something recognizable, but impossible to point out.

_ “Why is it that you remain here, amongst all this death and disaster?”  _ the Seeker flinched at the Reckoner’s voice, the familiarity uncanny. But when he searched those pale eyes, he saw that there was no recognition towards him that he held to the messenger of death before him. Perhaps it would be better that way, though. 

Just perhaps.

“I am the tertiary Moatilliatta, the pre-predecessor of the current Moatilliatta. A bit of an antiquated icon, a pagan god to some of these Remnants.” the strange Seeker replied, “It doesn’t hurt that in my life, I roamed the place that this once was. Tartarus. I sought to destroy death. But all I did was sacrifice myself, I vanished from people’s minds. I still haven’t been remembered.”

_ Tartarus. Death.  _ It all seemed too familiar to the Reckoner, but he shook his head to alleviate himself of the confusion.  _ “Can you direct me to the primary Moatilliatta?” _

The Seeker looked a bit disappointed for a split second, but then swallowed it down and answered, “Yes I can,  _ old friend _ .” and then vaguely pointed to the top of the crumbled tower, “He asked me to do something to him, so you ought to be prepared.”

The Reckoner shrugged in response, not really sure how to feel about that. He then drifted upwards the crooked and unstable stacks of rubble to where the dark-haired teen sat and quietly sobbed into his hands, much to Willow’s surprise.

_ “Gladiolus-“ _

“I can feel them,  _ Ryoji,  _ your memories.” Akira wept into himself, “No wonder… Arisato-san was to reluctant to give me them… it’s  _ painful…” _

The Reckoner stuttered, uncertain when he felt a flicker of yellow-white before his eyes, a voice that he was certain was  _ his. _

_ “What have you done, Gladiolus?” _

“Since you can’t remember, I remembered for you.” Akira clarified, wiping the last of his tears away before they returned. He turned to face the Reckoner, who was wrought with confusion and disillusionment.

  
  
  


_ “You’ll have to… kill me.” _

  
  
  


The Reckoner writhed in pain and clenched his head, unable to comprehend the images before him that pierced his heart like a knife. He would cry if he could, mourn if he was able - but all that could convey his pain was the wince of his white eyes.

  
  


* * *

_ Akira Kurusu _

_ Several Minutes Prior _

  
  


“Hey,” a soft voice called from seemingly nobody, and Akira was alerted as he frantically searched around. He had enough of the groping and aweing Remnants, and was about to quickly leave before he heard the voice again, “Hey, over here.”

He then turned to find the small and haggard figure of a humanoid who appeared to be a young man around his age, though ill with insomniac tendencies.

“Who are you?” the Phantom Thief demanded of the stranger, who only tiredly huffed and squirmed to make himself snugly warm in a wool blanket with his back to a story wall.

“I am just like you, except I died. Wasn’t fortunate enough to have a coma every night, you see.” it was blankly said, nonchalantly, really. As if his own death didn’t weigh on him. “I am Arisato Minato, the sealer of death itself. The tertiary bearer of the Arcana,  _ ‘the World’.” _

“I always hear up to ‘tertiary’ here, but what about the rest…?” Akira questioned Minato, who shrugged.

“We don’t speak of the quaternary and quinary, they are more obsolete than this place now.” the boy hummed, “They are mostly forgotten, too. The only reason I remain a Seeker is because I was remembered. Somewhat.”

“Well, I need a Reckoner to remember who they are.” the primary Moatilliatta told the Tertiary World, who seemed generally unperturbed at the statement.

“Depends on the Reckoner. Who do you got?”

“It’s the one that calls itself Willow. Speaks in terms of flowers, steel gray with rainbow in the right lighting.” the Phantom Thief shrugged as he failed to notice how Minato’s face fell.

“Oh, I see…” the Tertiary World hugged himself tightly and eyed the luminous ring on his finger in a mix of realization and panic. He sighed, and furiously rubbed his forehead in an uncharacteristic expression of unsettled nature. “Ha-ha, I know him… Tarant-sensei had to remove his memories, and he implanted them into me… I’m not sure if it was for his sick satisfaction or not, but I do have them.”

“So will it be impossible for Willow to remember?”

“Oh, absolutely. Right now, at least. I don’t hate Tarant-sensei, he’s just a bit… turbulent.” Minato continued his frustrated rubbing, “Before the Schism, he was a bit more leveled. It’s just when… well, when I had completed my journey, he was maddened that the bearer Moatilliatta had vanished from perception, what initially caused his child to be miscarried. War broke out between the Architects who sided with Tarant-sensei and the Remnants who worshipped me. The other Seekers tried to quell the conflict, but they were exterminated by both sides. Tarant-sensei did some terrible things, such as what was done to  _ Ryo-  _ Willow, in order to provoke me. He saw me as a failed vessel for his child, a failure to even be called his child.

“Eventually, this world was sealed off. But I return often, to remember my friends. To remember what we did. Such as now. But this is too coincidental, don’t you think?”

Akira wasn’t sure what Minato had meant by that, but the hollow teen continued anyway, “Right now, Tarant-sensei is more like himself prior to the Schism. He must be remorseful, especially since he finds himself a horrible father to me now. He treats his experiments as his children, adores them. Probably to fill the hole left by his failure to birth an actual child.

“Then you come along, when I am here. You ask me about the Reckoner who used to be such a prevalent part of my minute mortal life, wishing for him to remember. It’ll be impossible for him to, for I will truly disappear if I give him the memories. But you, the Primary Moatilliatta, can hold his memories, his burdens from him. If I’m not mistaken, you wish to be resurrected, yes?”

“How will me holding his memories help-“

“When Reckoners remember, they can choose to remain a Reckoner or to become a Seeker. If they remain a Reckoner, then they are granted the ability to resurrect a soul they have taken. Reckoners  _ take  _ the memories of the souls they take. If you die and have those memories, he will remember. And he could bring you back.”

“What kind of Jesus shit is this?” Akira made a grandiose gesture of exasperation, but received a slightly amused look from Minato.

“You  _ are  _ speaking to the Messiah, Kurusu-kouhai.” the Tertiary Moatilliatta pointed out, much to the Phantom Thief’s dismay.

_ “Are you fucking kidding me.” _

“My body sealed the demiurge of Death itself away, I became a door and died for your sins. You better be grateful.” Minato joked as he crossed his arms and faked an indignant huff. “Now come on and sit on Santa’s lap, he’s got a present to give you.” The small teen, which Akira corrected himself as Minato was probably ancient as all  _ hell _ , motioned towards his small lap on his small figure in postured charisma.

“You know, from what you’ve told me about yourself I’d assume you’d be a whole lot more deadpan and edgy.” Akira confessed as he stepped over the rubble towards Minato and hunched over him awkwardly.

“Well, I was. But wallowing in my own sadness only makes me feel more lonely. I’m only faking it until I make it.” the former human sighed and motioned his arms out like he was a baby grabbing for his mother’s tits to milk, much to the other’s dismay, “Now don’t be shy, young man. Sit on my lap, it’s about to get depressing.”

Akira almost choked before he slowly sat closely to Minato who was actually just too prideful to admit he was touch-starved after five-hundred nineteen years without the warmth of the living beside him. The smaller yet older one hugged the other tightly, as he craved warmth so desperately, “I could’ve been your Velvet Room attendant, you know.” It was like a relieved sigh into his clothed warmth, cold breath in juxtaposition to his body heat. Akira only hummed in response, urging his predecessor to continue.

“I wasn’t selected, though. Despite Igor’s promises. It has to do with why you’re here so frequently, isn’t it? How is he?”

The Phantom Thief clammed up slightly, “Igor’s place in the Velvet Room has been compromised by the demiurge Yaldabaoth…”

Realization flashed on his predecessor’s face,  _ “Oh,  _ so after all this time their leader decided to reclaim the world, huh…”

Akira made a questioning sound before Minato went further into detail, “There was an even greater Schism that happened, known as the Father Schism. Between false icons and the entity Tremulant-sama. Yaldabaoth is the leader of the demiurges, somewhat. He tried to limit humanity, and Tremulant-sama didn’t like that. So the Reaper was born, and killed the physical world’s Yaldabaoth. The demiurges were later permitted to exist only in cognition, exiled into the far reaches of the Domain called the Burn. Nyx, who I sealed, was a product of the Burn.

“Yaldabaoth was permitted to leave the Burn to conduct appointments in the Sclera. To avoid suspicion and alarm, it was requested that he adopt the alias of Ilda Matrix.”

“How do you know this, then?”

“Tarant-sensei is something akin to a calculated soothsayer, an arbiter, an augur… Not just that, but he is our Faust, who made a deal with Mephistopheles for forbidden knowledge. The cost was that he’d be cursed to never be able to actually have Moatilliatta, something Mephistopheles knew would drive the man mad.” Minato looked darkly into the sky, where the Architects looked over to glass the tiles of this shattered world, “He told me of it during a visit, when he was stable. How it wasn’t my fault that Igor didn’t take me, that it was the very nature of this world.

“I think somewhere among his curses and hubris… it comes from disappointment towards the entities that rule this place. He watches the world burn in the hopes that the ashes might yield him some answers, but all that he finds is more grief. He blames them for this, unable to cope with the destruction he’s brought.”

The Phantom Thief hummed in response, and thought idly that his predecessor seemed too familiar with whatever the Doctor suffered from. Like he had seen someone suffer the same way.

“It’s Willow, by the way.” Minato answered, af if he read Akira’s mind, “His real name was Ryoji… Mochizuki Ryoji. He was very dear to me,” his predecessor rubbed at his ring, “and I had to kill him myself.”

Akira held his breath and waited for Minato to keep going. He watched as the other’s eyes became tired and saddened with grief, the glossy tears that threatened to spill from the older one’s eyes.

“The memories you are about to receive are going to be very painful, and  _ very  _ personal… I won’t blame you if you have to throw up, just don’t do it on me.”

The one who sealed away Death itself pressed the pad of his thumb to the back of the Phantom Thief’s head, and added pressure to where the skull was soft. It felt utterly agonizing, like the fingertip burned through him, the small and focused intrusion to his mind reminded him of the bullet that tore through him. The phantom contusions flared on his skin, and Minato noticed this mutely while he found the collection of wounds sickening to impose on anyone. The bullet hole was hidden by locks of black and curly hair, though.

The predecessor watched as his inheritor’s eyes darted and unfocused with pain, as if the burning at the back of his skull caused him to recall something himself. He drew out the Satori cells that rested in the back of Akira’s mind as promotion to his meningitis, and invoked a connection between the two. He almost pulled his hand away in shock when he saw his inheritor get shot in the head many times in reality, almost felt the fear in Akira when he cowered away from the other man in the holding cell…

As for Akira, he almost lost himself in the flood of events - the boy in his mind, the incident that had killed his parents, the new transfer student, the flirtatious nature and the high spirits, the reveal of his identity, the tears in his eyes when he gave him that ring, the disfigured friend he fought, sacrificing himself, being forgotten, falling empty; forsaken. Mochizuki Ryoji, the one held dormant in his mind as Pharos, true identity as Thanatos.

It left him feeling hollow and hopeless, and he hadn’t even realized that he started crying.

He felt the arms of the smaller boy, though. He still felt distant, but Minato’s voice reassured, “It’s over now, Kurusu-kouhai… there’s nothing you can do to save him, but you can help him now…”

Akira felt sick, and he quickly pulled himself away from Minato who appeared to be worried and at a loss at the same time. The Phantom Thief didn’t dwell on it though, he just kept going - up, and away. On the torn tower of Tartarus, the edge that looked into the nothingness and the glass that gleamed prettily in a sorrowful way, that death could look so beautiful.

He wretched off the ledge, but nothing came out aside from visual ripples of music into the air, colors like ribbons that parted and dispersed into the sky. He felt empty, and unsure of himself before he reminded himself that he was  _ Akira Kurusu. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I've been awful busy as of late. Planning on making an intermission chapter between this work and then the next I have in store, Idioteque. Or maybe just a short for the after story. It's almost been a year, holy crap - I first started writing this during last year's finals, the week before winter break. We're chugging along, I'm just not so punctual! I'm sorry!
> 
> If you have any friends you can share this with, please do. I've noticed people getting a whole lot less interested as this goes on, and it's mostly my fault. I'm not some big-named social media person with an active Tumblr or anything, and the stuff that i'm writing really panders to my own taste to the point where I cringe inwardly. I projected my super extra music taste on these characters too, it's like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or some crap.
> 
> I don't think that these characters wouldn't listen to this stuff, it's moreover symbolic of the fact that these musicians tend to be avant garde, much like these characters. These people are trendsetters, much like experimental artists.
> 
> I feel like Ryuji would be into more metal-like, traditional-sounding stuff. Yes is a little out there, Minus The Bear maybe, or Rush...? Minus The Bear sounds most viable.  
> Makoto gives me Heart vibes.  
> Yusuke definitely feels like King Crimson.  
> I think it'd be funny if Haru liked Mudvayne.  
> Ann would be into something orchestral, romance-fusion sounding. I have a certain sound in mind, like The Mars Volta's Widow or The Dear Hunter's Look Away. It's hard to place.  
> Akira is definitely a jazz-fusion romance-sound guy, stuff that's funky, out there, but catchy.  
> Morgana is probably that annoying guy at school who thinks he's cultured because he listens to Pink Floyd, the Tom Petty of experimental rock. Sorry, it's true.
> 
> Sorry, I got off track. It's also my fault for putting a bunch of existential nonsense in this work. It was originally supposed to be an Akechi character study, but it turned into this massive, pseudo sci-fi aneurism on a page because I was listening to these weird bands.


	11. Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of monsters and men, the wolves hidden among them, we forget that they most often are ourselves, and rarely the work of an other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh I’m sorry but you’re probably sick of hearing about it

_ Minutes After Willow’s Breakdown _

  
  


“Stop calling me Faust,  _ mein Sohn.”  _ Doctor Wolfram rubbed his temple with his hybrid hand in annoyance, but Minato wasn’t having any of it.

“You are not exempt from your share of criticisms, Faust-sensei.” the one who stopped Death pointed out, much to the Doctor’s despair.

“Avernus has blessed me, not cursed me… n-no, he can’t have…” the mongrel Architect fell into his familiar lapse of denial, something that Minato was used to, but Akira had yet to observe. The Doctor bit at his chimera fingers, covered in fur and nails akin to claws, unperturbed by the hair that he got in his mouth. He was supremely stressed. “D-do not deceive me, Moatilliatta, I know you love to play games  _ mit deinem Vater, aber das ist die Grausamkeit von dir… ich will kein mehr… oh, je… Mephistopheles…”  _ he shook in the disillusionment.

Minato had explained to Akira before that Doctor Wolfram would often have lapses like these, where he would forget that the Schism occurred, or that Moatilliatta was miscarried, or that Mephistopheles cursed him with being unable to organically create life. All he could do was make monsters, like Frankenstein. He was stuck in layer and layer of reference, unsure if he was Faust, Frankenstein, or Wolfram Tarant, and sometimes called himself ‘ _ Tolfram Warant _ ’ in the manner that Herlock Sholmes came to be. He believed that he was a homage, living in the skin of a bootleg version of himself for the sake of telling a narrative easier. As if the skin of Wolfram Tarant wasn’t extremely obscure already.

He was an odd man, and most of what he said didn’t make too much sense, but it was wise to assume that what he did say was correct. For the sake of his sanity, and yours. 

Except for times like this.

“Faust-sensei, what does your amulet say?” Minato reminded. Wolfram Tarant carried around a silver amulet that was meant for his child, but since they were never born, he kept it. He didn’t give it to his lover, and he instead disfigured her in his madness. Carved inside was a Latin phrase to remind Wolfram of what he had done, ‘ _ FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI’;  _ the descent of Avernus is easy - it is easy to fall into moral ruin.

Doctor Wolfram Tarant, Tolfram Warant, Tnarat Marflow, Faust, Frankenstein, said, “Ah,  _ es tut mir leid, mein Sohn _ . I have fallen further than I have nightmares of. Like the acid dreams, the visitor, the Visionary’s friend - Alavaz Relxib Cirdec, his story of Force-Protection Swan… haha, the twenty-five housed and snakes, like Iulius Kaiser, these ides of March, hoo-hoo~ oh, allegory of allusion, vigorously pushing, agenda, agenda,  _ agenda _ ~”

“Tell us how Ryoji is doing.” Minato firmly commanded, much to the dislike of the teasing mood that the Doctor seemed to be in.

“No fun, none, your Liberosis seemingly transient now. You care for this boy, yes. He shall fly again, as I yearn for you to… but your time is over, tertiary. Disappointment. I shall do this, not to satisfy your longing and wanting, but to preserve my child catalyst, in the Lotus, of parallel names - Ren Amamiya, how fitting, how very, like rain, like acid, falls off your petals, pure,  _ rebirth.”  _ the mongrel Architect blabbered, the tangent he spoke in unintelligible to the fresh-faced inheritor of his child, his primary  _ ‘Sohn’ _ .

The manic Doctor strutted over to where Willow rested, grimace as he pressed his forehead to the unconscious Reckoner, which  _ shouldn’t  _ happen to Reckoners, but this one was different. This one was  _ Thanatos… _

“This Fungaling, the perfection gestated from this artificial womb, as he had from yours, Tertiary  _ Sohn _ . When you use a demiurge Avatar of Death, converting it to meet Thanos’ Fungaling expectations is not so difficult. He has proven perfect, and I sought to execute the pinnacle of hubris by implant of the merciful and vengeful unto the vessel of decay perfect, but would they truly yearn something so selfish? The entity is no deity, and it would displease them to mutilate their… this flesh is not… I must stop the hunger, this revenant should only slice up and not across, not unto others. Flog myself, this monster of monsters, I become Typhon under the curse of Mephistopheles, this body I altered was wrong, provided by mistake of Igor… of Igor…”

The dog hybrid inspected the Reckoner carefully, and sighed in impatient defeat, “There is naught to say, but that you have succeeded circumventing my precautionary measures,  _ mein Sohn,  _ with the embedding of memories unto another who is  _ destined  _ to die, as you were, and who is to be delivered by the deformed lover you had. Not only that, but to extract them unwillfully is to impose death, such is that you found the perfect carrier. How peculiar, this fate you have triumphed over. I bet you have been conniving for this outcome, a mutually beneficial deal that defeats me. I relent, you have won.  _ This  _ battle.

“ _ No,  _ I must stop myself. You are my child, as the forest is to man, and I find myself deteriorating in my cleverness. Compared to you, who is destined only to improve, that is. The deformity I imposed onto you is mark that you are my child, but I have forsaken you for things beyond your control. I am mad over impossibilities.  _ Krosis, nay, es tut mir leid. _ Do not forgive me, my atrocities outnumber my greatest feats.

“Your lover is fine. He is suffering from the in bleeding of his omitted memories. It’s not that much, and he is only likely to recall eons from now, if it weren’t for this one’s fate.” the mad Doctor gestured to Akira, who still couldn’t follow the roundabout way that the mongrel spoke, as if he simply recognized the words the Doctor said, but not able to find any sort of reason behind it.

“And Kurusu,  _ mein Sohn,”  _ the nonsensical man addressed the leader of the Phantom Thieves directly, “apologies for the installation of Satori cells into your body… it was a request by  _ mein Sohn  _ Arisato here.”

The teen was confused, brain still fried by the manner in which the Doctor talked, especially how he said everything without stop, an enfilade of ramblings. He barely registered enough to turn to the smaller holder of Moatilliatta, and make a vague questioning sound.

“It was so that you could save as many as possible, unlike me.” the predecessor replied, “I didn’t want you to end up like me in the end, Kurusu-kouhai. I did the same for Narukami-kouhai.”

“Even Yu-onii?!” Akira spat.

“Yes,” the meek boy murmured, “it was when the Investigation Team confronted Taro Namatame. I stopped him from murdering Namatame. Just barely. With Satori cells, though, I could make a link between you and Goro Akechi. He cries out for help, and I believe you can save him.”

“Ah, yes, yes… how very  _ Pathos _ … pathetic.” Doctor Wolfram shrugged with a wide grimace on his face, “Mephistopheles granted me the forbidden, as are my words from worlds…  _ Mora _ . You see, the appeal of irrationalities of man led to the flourish of men of fascist saturation, propaganda. The allegory insists that I refer back to Nobody, his blank slate head where tainted infinity was written, like the bloody clothes that damned him from the ledge. All the way alive, air, trees, water, animals…  _ ATWA…  _ where the trees struggled. Songs were written, Kool Aid did appeal to drink, like the red blood that stained the damning clothes, found by a surrogate for the people - the man of  _ ‘why’ _ s. Associated with the Speaker directly, who  _ I  _ am surrogate of this time. 

“The allegory… as my fellow Frankenstein associate has told the split siblings,  _ ‘Do not confide in faith, confide in hope. For humanity serves faith, but hope serves humanity.’  _ Do not fall victim, defect. Ah, but this is the wheel that I reinvent, for you are both of Moatilliatta… I rescind my ramble for the pieces of my puzzle mind are loose and spilling as the ossuary.  _ Mein schwarzes Sohn,  _ heed the identity of the deliverer… but I am a mad hypocrite, man born out of amalgam nightmares… cursed be me, the Faust who dared to deal with Mephistopheles.”

They were both utterly dumbfounded, unable to comprehend the nonsense that came from the Doctor’s mouth. They shrugged it off, and continued talking.

“I don’t know what to do, Arisato-senpai. How can I save him?” Akira asked the man who had come up with a way to cheat death itself, confident in the thinking skills of the one much more familiar with all of this psychedelic mess than he was.

But Minato just shrugged, about as unsure as Akira on the matter. That didn’t help the leader of the Phantom Thieves very much, much less to reassure him.

“Well, that doesn’t help!”

The dog-man cackled at their encounter as he conjured up an idea, but of course Akira wouldn’t understand it. He spoke in riddles and nonsense references.

“Please keep it simple for Kurusu-kouhai, he’s about to keel over dead from your convoluted words.” Minato sighed in protection of Akira’s fragile,  _ fragile  _ brain.

“Hah! That is an impossibility,  _ mein Sohn,  _ the Speaker has my words! An overflow in knowledge has set my mind to spill nigh-incoherence, imposed me with the curse of impulsive linguistics, like a bucket with a hole at the bottom where nothing is ever stored or held in place. It is the curse imposed on me by my descent to Avernus, my deal with  _ him _ . The cruelty, he stripped me of my fertility and the last threads of my sanity and placed the forsaken in my mind. Moatilliatta shall never be born of me in my likeness, but will be born unto the pre-existing flesh of the defective, as you are.

“To evade death is a simple feat for even you,  _ mein blaues Sohn,  _ but you could not evade it. For there were no comas, no decay-borne beings you knew, as  _ mein schwarzes Sohn  _ does now. Where Architects are of composition, a plan is my very specialty, for I am  _ the _ Oracle - the very one that grants sight to Prometheus the self-projection, the sensations he has struggling against Hephaestus’ bindings while the bird devours his spill, the one who recognizes that Prometheus was the very mother of a great snake as he was the father of fire, the bird that emerged all bloodied from his viscera a beast that would become one of the others. I am  _ the  _ Oracle that supplies the embalming that suggests preservation after death, where the heart may be weighed by their perceived gods, but in actuality are the splinters of mankind’s selves, fragments, as a human would peel back the folds of their brain to find the source of insanity, a vivisection of humankind’s condition, generalized into the flesh of entities but not gods. Presiding, but powerless. They are only what we believe in to ourselves, or they should be.

“The One has imposed a tourniquet along the neck of the Domain. Where the border would be to the Burn, it has made itself distinct in the form of suffocating barriers. With the cutting off of the poison from the Burn, however, the One has also commanded the exclusion of the Fringe, where the needy and suffering are pocketed. The Fringe where the cognitive world embeds itself, a subdivision called the ESP, further subdivided into factual existence and mere perception, where lives your  _ Metaverse _ . You don’t know this, but your universe is simply in a pocket of the Domain, but the flourish of this world is primarily exterior, beyond your universe, between life and death, the Domain. That is the definition, and yet you hail from this suffocating portion of the Domain, and access the inner circle, even the Sclera. It is a cytoplasm that reacts to the chosen, I tell you. For I created it. And I was enabled by man’s perception that the demiurge who beats the man who craves that apple, is god. The poison was stopped, but only by the poison itself was I able to.

“Then there is  _ you _ , who seeks to not only evade death, but to persuade others to do the same. You already have tried, in the depths of the ESP, in the depths of the Metaverse, in the depths of Mementos… the treasure is the persuasion of death, the charlatan advertising relief from worldly struggles, imposing the desire of death. This subject lacks a Palace, yes, but you know there is something to him that he has refused, this weaver of webs, conniving betrayer. My creation, the Satori cells, made from the mycelium of these worldly walls, the melt of cognitive tiles, have allowed you communion with the depths inside this one’s heart, as well. This one has asked to protect his host, because deep down he wishes to live. But he’s overwhelmed by the decay in his mind, yes? But the decay was imposed by the very  _ thing _ , the voice that speaks to you, as the Speaker speaks to me. He refuses to admit that even the darkness in himself is full of hope. Is naïve. He won’t accept a part of himself could be so childish. So there it is, splintered from the contrite adversary, his own Shadow. Adrift in the Metaverse, perhaps what remains of the cognitive worlds, such as this one. Would you so target his Shadow? Or would you expose yourself to danger by admission of your identity? You’ve already spilled so much to him; dreams, words, your own tears, your own blood. Would you risk everything to save everyone, as you have tried to before?”

Akira was on the verge of frustration, he didn’t understand what the  _ fuck  _ this thing was saying, “But if the cognitive worlds are limited to the ESP, then how come-“

“Astute question,  _ mein schwarzes Sohn.  _ Like my ignorant grammatical errors, there are loopholes. This world, Ghosts and Glass, is a defective piece, of course. All things here are. I, an Architect who has broken the Pledge; the Remnants who remained present when they were to disappear with the world; the Architects who follow me to commit atrocities beyond just the Pledge. I am the Faber-of-Will-and-Might here, my hubris against the Pledge akin to the breaking of the Mantle. I am the Master Builder, my sins against man unforgivable. Or I am the Primordial, the defectors my Flood, and you, Moatilliatta… are my Mendicant Bias. But I do not lull you with query and discourse, philosophy and plague, but I divulge my secrets. The One enables me to do this, since he himself is at stake with your failure - everything is. As you have defected from the malevolent god, I have defected from my binds.”

Akira had just about had it with Doctor Wolfram  _ fucking  _ Tarant’s bullshit, and was about to scream  _ ‘what the fuck do you mean?!’  _ when Minato courteously stopped him and gave him a  _ look _ .

“He’s basically saying that the next time you make way into the Domain, you can enter the ESP and find Akechi’s Shadow to confront. Or, you can simply talk to him. Maybe a little both.” the predecessor explained, “Then he said some stuff about how this place can only get through to the center of the Domain is because he defies, or something like that.”

“ _ How  _ do you  _ understand  _ him, Arisato-senpai?!” Akira wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be impressed with Minato, or if he should feel bad that his predecessor probably spent ages with the absolute nut job that was Doctor Wolfram Tarant.

“I’ve been here a while. Had time to look up whatever nonsense he was referencing. When you know what they’re all from, you start seeing Faust-sensei in a different light… he seems more like a pathetic nerd now, really.” Minato explained in a nonchalant manner, also unimpressed with the incredibly bizarre way that the dog-man spoke, “By the way, he was talking about  _ Halo.  _ I don’t remember it being  _ that _ in-depth, but  _ Halo 2  _ was absolutely massive in 2006.”

“Really?”

“About  _ Halo _ or Faust-sensei?”

“Both, I guess.” he didn’t really know what to think about it, since as far as he remembered, Halo was pretty lukewarm since the game developers switched. And he was more of a PlayStation type of guy, really.

“Not to mention the lofty speeches about the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Odyssey. Stuff by Franz Kafka, too. You’d have to have a  _ ‘very high IQ to understand’.”  _ Minato mocked the Doctor, who only harrumphed in response.

“It is the demand of the Speaker, I speak merely exo-vividly.  _ ‘Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed’,  _ the Speaker is vicariously communicating with our audience to convey that there is allegory, beneath contused pages where the letters take the pigment of abuse, between the nonsense I spew, there is a moral - something to be found. They are so used to the same phrases, the Speaker worries that by usage of these antiquated words, their piece in turn becomes cliche and antiquated itself. As  _ Fitter Happier  _ shows, many find themselves exempt from the wisdom of others. It is irrational to believe such arrogant things, naïve to find yourself above circumstances. Probability may appear to be a number, but they are people, too. In the suffer to wear one’s own flesh, they must act to either alter their true perception, or they must accept their vessel in the falsity of their vision.”

“Who the hell are you talking about? Who are  _ ‘they’?”  _ Akira was a bit concerned, but Minato reassured him, “He sometimes spews nonsense like this. They’re like… conspiracy theories.”

“Oh, so like Alex Jones.” the leader of the Phantom Thieves noted, but his predecessor only shrugged since he wasn’t sure who that was.

“You should return to your world, Kurusu-kouhai.  _ Ryo-  _ Willow won’t wake up so soon, and while  _ we  _ have eternity, you  _ don’t.”  _ Minato pointed out to Akira, who gazed worriedly at the Reckoner who once was the Avatar of Death itself.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Just go. Before daybreak, please. That’s when the Remnants get restless.”

Akira didn’t need to be told again. He complied, albeit reluctantly, and left the Ghosts and Glass behind out of his Satori cell-induced coma.

* * *

  
  
  


_ Doctor Wolfram Tarant _

  
  


_ After Both Left _

  
  


“I talk to the wind~” he hummed in declaration as he cleaned off his bloody scalpel from stitching another foreign patch of skin over his slightly decayed arm. It was hidden to his two visitors by his bloody and torn scrubs, like how most of his mutilated mouth was beneath his surgical mask. The grafted skin was cold and embalmed with a pungent glaze, red rivulets of translucent chunky fat slithered across the mangled limb, what once was his own arm became many. 

Foreign fingers, snugly wrapped to striated faux-tissue and pulleys across a prosthetic skeleton. It smelled like a morgue, and despite the frequent autopsies on his Legion-arm, they still rotted like gangrene; sickly green fluid mixed with black and shriveled flesh. Like there was a spider that crawled between metallic bone and wire muscles upon reclusive impulse, native to the world he yearned to be part of. 

But there was no brown recluse, only the frustrated bashing of a metal prosthetic in a bag of conglomerated meat, squelching beneath the slamming fist of a hungering mongrel Architect, who lists his profession as a Doctor but can never cure the simple ache in his gut that eats him away. No amount of pills or drinks or exercise could cure him of the burning in his heart, the anger kept under wraps of artificial tubing and tourniquets; the hatred he had towards himself, his body. It was a prison, and he was damned to be subhuman despite his posture over them. He would never be above humans, because his Pavlovian reflex had him sit on their lap and salivate in advance. He was bound to be subservient to the race of sin, whose compilation of all became a flawed being that oversaw every aspect of his life. Whose fragments shouted him down and burdened him with morals in the protest to progress.

In his hunger for knowledge, he had forgotten that there is such a thing as questioning whether he  _ should  _ do something, even if he is able. He thought that had made him above humans, but that was truly what made him below them. Where they could question everything, he merely dug down without thinking of a way to get up.

He once was content with being this way - he had a lovely spouse whose name had been lost in the rivers of time to him. She had been so lovely, but when she wasn’t able to deliver Moatilliatta, he lost that moral compass. He blamed humans for not believing in his child Moatilliatta, but in actuality he had been cursed by Mephistopheles after he made a deal with him, arrogantly. The Devil himself utilized Wolfram’s love for creation, and turned it all into decay, abominable augmentations. Hideous reminders.

It got to the point where he couldn’t stand looking at his spouse’s face, and gutted her like a fish from the navel up to her neck. Like King Henry, he was unjustly mad at his spouse for things she couldn’t control. He bludgeoned her face, dismantled it and turned her skin inside-out. With her corpse, he harvested her DNA to create an approximate clone to what Moatilliatta would’ve looked like, mixed with his own. But his child would only come out deformed, ugly. Mephistopheles had cursed every aspect of him, so that he may not have a child of any sort. 

With her rotting carcass, Wolfram had eventually twisted it into a pile of breathing decay - his Proto-Moatilliatta. It exhaled bubbling pus and inhaled the slick clear teflon it excreted from its red and bare flesh. 

He eventually scrapped it, and tried to create a more advanced form of the disgusting abomination in the attempt to bring the unborn life. It could speak, which he was elated over, ecstatic to hear his child speak for the first time. But Moatilliatta only wheezed out one sentence, over and over.

  
  


_ “I want to die.” _

  
  


Wolfram was tried by der Beratung der Waage in an appointment. He had broken the Pledge, that mankind wasn’t to be interfered with. And the second piece of flesh he used came from a disappeared human girl, which he brutally murdered sadistically. Tremulant was merciful and vengeful, and punished Wolfram - who wasn’t known as a Doctor at the time - to serve under the supervision of the Master Architect, who was Doctor Niemand Voxmund.

It was around the same time that Mephistopheles had began to hold his part of the bargain, information flooded Wolfram’s mind and drove him almost insane. He spoke like someone else, and eventually tempted Doctor Voxmund to enable his atrocities.

A series of disappearances happened on Earth, the physical world was no match for them. When Doctor Voxmund was caught, Wolfram’s involvement was missed entirely. He was appointed the Master Architect, became Doctor Wolfram Tarant, and persisted his atrocious behavior behind closed doors.

Part of himself thought that he was Mephistopheles, and he punished humans by brutally abusing them, as if he were the one to make that decision. He created Hell, in humanity’s mind. He was depraved and wrought with fear, where he lost grip on everything that was once gentle and nourishing about him, because of blind rage, his descent to Avernus, the consensual surrender of his sanity.

But then he met one confused human, who drifted in the ESP where Wolfram would often lurk to catch his prey. Sagenev Noisulla was his name, or his alias. He was high, and fell in between life and death that day. Sagenev asked the Doctor about what he could write to feed himself, and even though Wolfram knew that Sagenev would only buy more things to feed his addiction, he told him of a sorrow. It was surreal, for he was unusually present and lucid, despite the general blur he lived in so often past his spouse’s mutilation.

_ “Moatilliatta was never born, the goal I had set out for myself was prevented by Tremulant’s fragments. So I intend to resurrect Moatilliatta, to make the gods pay.” _

Sagenev only returned to him a peacefully satisfied face, and faded back into reality. When Sagenev died, an Avatar of his message splintered off and embedded itself into Wolfram’s mind, and introduced itself as the Speaker. It was disappointed at the sordidness of Wolfram, who had the power to better things. It told him of hopes to have, and to discard faith entirely. It said it was a victim of faith, the destruction it brought.

_ “You admire Tremulant, but you deny it. You envy humanity, this is your Shadow. You loathe yourself, so you retaliate. Stop this, Wolfram Tarant.”  _ the Speaker had told him one day _ , “Moatilliatta is your offspring, and with your power you can birth Moatilliatta. In your admiration of Tremulant, Moatilliatta was imagined by you to be merciful and vengeful, to re-balance the societal and cosmological world. You shall be punished for your animalistic atrocities against mankind by your very own offspring, as offspring are destined to surpass their parents.” _

Then he did it. He created Moatilliatta, a defective spirit that inhabits hubristic humans and provides them power to change things. He hoped that they wouldn’t succumb to the same hypocrisy as he; where he abused his power and enabled himself to punish mankind unjustly.

This brings the current Doctor Wolfram Tarant, self-loathing engineer of life, forbidden and forsaken to stand beside mankind by himself. He spent so much time trying to crush mankind beneath his heel for his own selfish desire, but in reality he envied humans.

He wanted to  _ be  _ human.

**[ T E R R A R U I N A N ]**

So he tried to engineer himself to be one, under incisions and scalpels, there was copious blood around his lab - his own. It was rare for the blood to not be mixed with salty tears, of sadness, of frustration, of anger. 

Doctor Wolfram Tarant could never be human, he only made himself more of a monster.

_ This is only fitting,  _ he would reason _ , I finally will look the monster that I am. _

He examined the rotten flesh that he had bashed against his table, the sour viscera of green and black splattered everywhere. He let the tears run down his deformed face, unsatisfied with himself.

He stopped though, suddenly just gazed at the empty black sky. All except for a light, not quite a star. The light gazed back at him and he smiled with his mutilated mouth, uneven and jagged teeth wide for the shimmering light to admire.

  
  


“Moatilliatta… you shall fly again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deadass catatonic last Thursday. Ran a lot.


	12. Death II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story takes place during "present" time, as in the moment of time in which Akira recollects in the interrogation room, hence the quotation marks around "Presently."
> 
> Doctor Takemi revealed the results of many of her peers' research to Akira in an appointment. He's not as surprised as she hoped he'd be.

_ “Presently” _

  
  


“The hospitals all want to bring you in for further examination. They’re awfully interested, but here. Let me tell you their findings first.” Takemi grinned, as if she were about to win a Nobel Peace Prize or something.

“After your tests at the hospitals, they all concluded generally the same thing; that this ‘growth’ is a symbiote that acts as an extended brain. Their scans showed that it compliments your brain, and they have several hypotheses about where it came from and what its capabilities are.” the Doctor paused for a minute and quirked her eyebrow, “Oh? You don’t seem so surprised. Want to tell me why?”

Akira shrugged, “It’s just as you said. Some sort of supernatural nonsense.”

The Goth-Doctor only remained silent to coax further information from the Phantom Thief.

“It’s a…  _ something…  _ developed by Doctor Wolfram Tarant, who is also part dog. Don’t ask.” the teen had an uncomfortable look about his face, “He calls them  _ ‘Satori cells’,  _ and they’re supposed to allow me to…  _ ‘communicate’  _ on some sort of link between others who have it in them.”

Takemi sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, “You’ve been seeing another Doctor without my permission?”

Akira was surprised she was upset at  _ that  _ and not the fact he has a  _ fucking  _ growth in his brain that allows him to telepathically speak to people by a shady-ass dog-man. But ok. “It’s not like I had a choice in the matter, he had to-“

“Up-up-up-up,” she jokingly snapped, “and a  _ furry,  _ too? You have the  _ worst  _ company.”

He looked up and down the  _ Goth-Doctor  _ who was telling  _ him  _ about odd company.  _ Pot calling the kettle black, much?  _ “As I was saying, he  _ had  _ to implant his  _ ‘child’  _ into me so that I could have the power to defy god-“ he wanted to bang his head on the table because  _ damn, he sounded like an absolute maniac,  _ “-and one of the holders of his  _ ‘child’  _ before me requested that I get the cells implanted in me so that I can save this guy who tries to kill me in almost all of the three-hundred eighty-seven times I’ve lived through this year. He also told me how to cheat death, so he’s cool. And Doctor Wolfram  _ isn’t  _ a furry, he’s  _ literally  _ part-dog.”

She didn’t really know what to say to that, but then postured herself, “I stand corrected. You have friends in ‘high’ places. Are you sure you’re not on drugs?”

“I’m pretty sure. If I was, I’d be dead. Plus I don’t want to get in trouble on probation.”

“Okay, Mister Phantom Thief.” Takemi rolled her eyes, “So you don’t want this potentially harmful thing removed from your head?”

“Not  _ yet _ . I don’t want some inter-dimensional pseudo-scientific magic creature that I barely understand around my most important asset for the rest of my life.” Akira said matter-of-factly, and Takemi sighed in exasperation.

“Okay, go consult these magic dog-people in your head instead of an  _ actual  _ doctor. I know when a secret is to be kept.”

Akira was a bit upset that Takemi didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t exactly sure who  _ would  _ actually listen in a situation like this. Next he’s going to tell her that the fog is actually poisonous gas summoned by a malevolent god trying to fuse reality and the cognitive world together. 

_ Oh wait. _

Either way, the whole situation was insane. Even by standards of strange that he’s  _ lived  _ through. Like how Masayoshi Shido’s Shadow was basically Steven Armstrong from Metal Gear  _ ‘nanomachines, son!’,  _ or like  _ how does he even eat the Big Bang Burger?  _ He’s surprised that he only had the growth by his brain and not a stomach with a black hole in it! And the time-loop thing, utterly confusing. He’d remember all the stuff he learned and would have the same amount of cash, but  _ why  _ didn’t he have the gains of the previous year?! Well, to be fair he didn’t remember that he had lived the year before, but that doesn’t matter! Where. Were. His. Abs. And then this whole mind-fuck of ‘between life and death’, like the Velvet Room wasn’t just the  _ pinnacle  _ of utter confusion and mystery (why the fuck was Caroline always so mad at him?? What did he do??!). It had to get even  _ more  _ supernatural.  _ Why?!! _

But of course,  _ motherfucking  _ Wolfram Tarant overheard his thoughts. The cells were his  _ children,  _ after all. He was his  _ child,  _ after all.

“The convolution is necessary to shroud the allegory. You experience Nodus Tollens,  _ mein Sohn.  _ Fret not, things will resolve.”

Oddly enough, that was the most coherent thing he’d ever heard from the Doctor,  _ ever.  _ Akira was bitter in frustration at the confusing nature of his life.  _ Why did it have to be me? _

And Akira wouldn’t accept the response  _ ‘you just happened to be in the right place at the right time’ _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. I did announce as much on my Wattpad account, but I'm considering moving all of my announcements to Twitter. Please follow me @diivizkrah.
> 
> It's almost been a year since I started this project, since next week is finals, and that's when I wrote it. I'm very busy with sports, and wrestling has to be the hardest sport in the world, I swear. The conditioning is utterly brutal, and they have us leaving for meets at 6 in the morning. I encourage all of you to start wrestling, as I'm guessing that you're mostly teenage girls reading this, lol. I'm sure your girl's team is very small, and needs some more people in different weight classes. I don't encourage that you try and cut weight by doing unhealthy things, though, okay? Wrestling is best when you're in your weight class, you should always eat before practice and drink lots of water. If you're going to cut weight anyway, make sure you eat tons of fiber and drink lots of water; when you do that, your body gets used to having water just go right through you, and you'll have the nutrients you need inside your body without any of the weight. This strategy can apply to anyone, not just wrestlers. Water comprises the most of your weight, and if you have a habit of drinking a lot so you can remove all the guff in your body. Don't buy into some crap like crystals or essential oils, that stuff isn't scientific like the strategy that I just told you
> 
> That's enough of health class, kids! Now I'm gonna dump my emotions on you.
> 
> I'm coming out to you guys as trans. I'm not sure if I've done so already, but yeah. I'm FTM, which could seem suspicious because I'm writing gay fanfiction, which is most often associated with crazy fangirls. I'm not gonna lie, I'd totally smash Ryuji, I'd love to date him irl, and as you can tell with my writing, I'm projecting on Akira a lot. I'm sorry, I don't think I'm relatable whatsoever.
> 
> I'm gonna be honest, I really like looking masculine. It's why I became a wrestler, it's why I'm an athlete. I just wish my chest would disappear, and I just wish I could grow facial hair, but I also don't want to go bald like my family so often does. I'm worried about going on testosterone for that reason, worried that I might not be trans, and just be a tomboy. I don't even know how to introduce myself to people. My own name doesn't sound right, the voice that I speak with is different than the one I think in. I'm dealing with a lot right now, and I've been working on the same damn chapter for 8 months.


	13. *!!*ON HIATUS*!!*

Dear Beloved Reader(s),

I am sorry to disappoint you all again for failing to meet my deadlines. Education comes before sports comes before hobbies, and unfortunately this work is delegated to the role of a hobby. I’ve been on writer’s block for months, but I anticipate that when I get my hands on P5R, all of that may change.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer you comfort in this time of fears over COVID-19. While I am in quarantine, I’m afraid that I’m still ailed with the infamous writer’s block. Not only did it interfere with water polo this season, but it’s left me without the fun of a party on my birthday. I gained 10lbs within the past few days just through stress, so I’ve resorted to diligently taking my medicine and going on long, isolated walks. My mind is no longer focused on completing this work, and this likely just comes off as another excuse to all of you, but I’d very much like to invest my time in the people who I might lose due to this disease. While I am not frantically busy trying to complete assignments, I would like to love the people who are my greatest supporters. I would suggest you all to do the same, but I cannot tell you how to enjoy your experience here.

I wish to have informed you all sooner of my anxieties and inability to complete this piece, because not only do I juggle academics and sports, but also a job and social life. I don’t think it would be acceptable for me to release a sub-par product prematurely without the love and care it deserves. It’d be no better than the release of Fallout 76, but thank goodness that millions of dollars aren’t riding on this stuff.

Thank you so much everyone, I love you all,

-7Threes


	14. Another Announcement

Dear Beloved Reader(s),

sorry for yet another letdown. Really. I'm not going to beat around the bush, so I'm just going to say it straight.

I am dissatisfied with my level of writing in this piece, but that isn't to say I'll abandon it. Quite the contrary; I am revising every chapter to fit accordingly to the story of Persona 5: Royal. When I started this work in Winter 2018, I had never anticipated that ATLUS would have the gall to release a definitive version of Persona 5 like they had for Persona 4 with Persona 4: Golden, respectively. Thus, I had set out to create my own sort of Persona 5: Golden experience, meaning that our little group of Phantom Thieves had to face yet another threat than Yaldabaoth, and were given yet another semester to enjoy sweet, sweet winter time. This work was supposed to be in tandem in referring to deviations from Persona 5's original story and how the protagonist would've had one last chance to get this right, as conditions of the universe had ultimately changed since then.

I also have other personal issues with the way I went about writing this story. I had started out with trying to make an Akechi character piece, or Akechi's slow realization that it was you, the player, who was the leader of the Phantom Thieves that he so vehemently despised. I wanted to play with Akechi a little bit, and provide some sort of internal conflict that he had with killing you, the player, and what maybe would make his story that much more tragic when he realizes that he was in love with you or something, and his struggle as he refuses to come to terms with the fact that his feelings towards your character might've been greater and more fulfilling than his lifelong pursuit of revenge against Shido. It was supposed to be a one shot divided into pieces, but unfortunately, that all fell apart when I went on and off again with the story, not knowing truly what I wanted out of the story I was writing. You, the reader, can probably see this most painfully obvious in my self-indulgent ramblings and extremely intrusive pieces of myself that I passed as a sorry excuse for "world building," with beings such as Tremulant, the Reckoners, and the Domain in general. My writing was tainted by selfish convoluted feelings that ultimately made the piece very cringe-y to look back at. I made the characters like how I saw them, and not for who they truly were, and honestly, where the hell did Morgana even go?

So basically, I decided that I am going to gut this piece and clean it up into a coherent work instead of a self-indulgent mess. I am going to write the story according to the narrative as shown in Persona 5: Royal, although I haven't finished it entirely (don't spoil me). I think it important to completely rework everything to make sense, dammit. I will also probably change the names of some of the parts to be more according to a wider array of music than just Radiohead, because honestly their music is cool and all, but I think it's important to spice it up. Maybe the songs will changed based on the perspective of the characters. I haven't fully conceptualized everything yet, bear in mind, but I hope my changing things will result in a much more digestible and satisfactory piece that I can be proud of instead of a shitty self-insert pipe dream that I misguidingly refuse to self-reflect upon because I'm too far up my own ass to see that meaningless and intensely verbose regurgitations of my ramblings aren't art, it's just confusing.

Thank you all for being so loyal and supportive,

7Threes


	15. I Got Hacked

My email has been breached, and it’s like a disgusting roach is going about my accounts trying to steal things from me, or to find something valuable. I’m worried they’re going to get into my bank account, as well as here because they seem to be looking for data and hoo boy I have a few things here that I’ve posted that have information about me. I’m just letting you all know in advance just in case something weird happens.

Thank you, sorry that this isn’t an update,

7Threes


End file.
